A Minneapolis man has been sentenced to 16½ years in prison for his part in the fatal beating of a man whose body was dumped in a rural Dakota County culvert.
Arturo Morales-Ceras, 35, pleaded guilty to aiding and abetting second-degree murder-while committing felony assault in the killing of 39-year-old Manuel Mandujano in Minneapolis on March 29, 2021.
Morales-Ceras was one of four people charged in the case. He reached a plea agreement with prosecutors in June, whereby he would receive the 198-month prison term for testifying in the trials of his co-defendants. He was sentenced on Monday.
According to the criminal complaints:
Mandujano’s family reported him missing April 4, 2021, after last seeing him on March 27.
His body was found in a culvert in Castle Rock Township on April 26. His hands were bound behind his back and a roofing nail was in his heel. An autopsy concluded he died of blunt trauma.
Investigators relied on a confidential informant and cell phone location data to identify Ivan Contreras-Sanchez as a suspect.
Morales-Ceras later admitted that he and Contreras-Sanchez abducted Mandujano at gunpoint from a South Minneapolis homeless encampment and drove him to a North Side house, where he was beaten in the basement for more than two hours. A third man, Edgar Martinez-Montez, also took part in the beating.
Morales-Ceras admitted to investigators that he used a hammer to drive a roofing nail into Mandujano’s heel.
Mandujano was brought upstairs, where he was questioned about being a “snitch” and working with police.
Eventually, the defendants placed the badly injured Mandujano in plastic and loaded him into the hatchback area of Contreras-Sanchez’s Chevrolet Malibu Maxx.
The charges say that Contreras-Sanchez, Morales-Ceras and his girlfriend, Tomasa Martinez, got into the car and went south. Martinez drove. At one point, Contreras-Sanchez, who was seated in the back, told the others that Mandujano had died.
Investigators also learned from Morales-Ceras that they met up with another vehicle and proceeded to drive around, looking for a place to dispose of the body in an area with water.
Surveillance footage from a Speedway in Inver Grove Heights captured the two vehicles. It also showed Martinez-Montez enter the gas station store with another Hispanic man, where one bought a bottle of Lipton Brisk fruit punch. Investigators found the bottle, which was unopened, near Mandujano’s body.
Investigators found three videos on Contreras-Sanchez’s phone that showed all four defendants present at the time of the beating, charges say. In one video, Morales-Ceras waives a hammer at Mandujano. In another, Mandujano is crying, out of breath and bloodied.
A Hennepin County jury in July convicted Contreras-Sanchez, 42, of Minneapolis, of aiding and abetting second-degree murder and second-degree murder-while committing felony assault. He’s serving a 40-year prison term.
Last week, jurors convicted Martinez-Montez, 37, of Minneapolis, of the same two charges. His sentencing is set for May 18.
Martinez, 31, of Minneapolis, has pleaded not guilty to kidnapping, and her jury trial is scheduled to begin June 12.
