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Police arrest convicted Vegas bombmaker who escaped prison

Porfirio Duarte-Herrera was convicted in 2010 of killing a hot dog stand vendor using a motion-activated bomb atop a car parked at the Luxor casino

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Nevada Dept. of Corrections

Associated Press

LAS VEGAS — Police have arrested a convicted bombmaker who escaped from a Nevada prison where he was serving a life sentence for a deadly 2007 explosion outside a Las Vegas Strip, authorities said.

Las Vegas police said they received information Wednesday night that a person matching the description of Porfirio Duarte-Herrera was in the area. Officers took the man into custody, confirmed he was Duarte-Herrera and arrested him, the department said in a statement.

Additional information wasn’t immediately released by Las Vegas police.

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Gov. Steve Sisolak had earlier ordered an investigation into the escape after he said late Tuesday his office learned the escapee had been missing from the medium-security prison since early in the weekend.

Officials didn’t realize until Tuesday morning that Duarte-Herrera, 42, was missing during a head count at Southern Desert Correctional Center near Las Vegas.

Duarte-Herrera, from Nicaragua, was convicted in 2010 of killing a hot dog stand vendor using a motion-activated bomb in a coffee cup atop a car parked at the Luxor hotel-casino.

Records show his co-defendant, Omar Rueda-Denvers, remained in custody. The 47-year-old from Guatemala is serving a life sentence at a different Nevada prison for murder, attempted murder, explosives and other charges.

A Clark County District Court jury spared both men from the death penalty in the slaying of Willebaldo Dorantes Antonio, whom prosecutors identified as the boyfriend of Rueda-Denvers’ ex-girlfriend.

Prosecutors said jealousy was the motive for the attack on the top deck of a two-story parking structure. The blast initially raised fears of a terrorist attack on the Strip.