Hyderabad: America’s most wanted fugitive, Muddamalle Amit Livingston, 46, was arrested in Sainikpuri by Cyberabad police and Crime Investigation Department sleuths. Hyderabad-born Amit Livingston, a naturalised US citizen, was convicted by a Texas court for murdering a woman with whom he was in a relationship. Interpol issued a red corner notice for him in 2008, after he escaped to India. Livingston has been on the run for seven years.
It turns out that he has been living under the name of Sanjay Kumar in a penthouse at the SS Pride Apartments in Madhavapuri Colony in Sainikpuri some four years. Kushaiguda police, who were checking the antecedents of people living in the Sainikpuri locality, found Livingston.
Kushaiguda inspector D. Prathap said, “As there are several foreign nationals living here, we keep a close watch. Livingston used to stay alone. He was also on the radar of the CID. He was living here with a fake identity and was doing medical transcription work for a firm at Paradise. We seized a driving licence, ration card, Aadhar and PAN cards that he obtained under his fictitious name. At the police station, he confessed.”
The CID cops said that they have been tracking him for a year based on his phone call records.
“His phone was booked in a fake name. He was working from home most of the time. Many phone calls from his number were going to a company at Paradise. We verified with the company and identified the address,” said a CID official.
Raju Choudary, a provisional store owner in Madhavapuri Colony, said Livingston used to come to his shop to buy cigarettes. “He has been staying here for the past three-and-a-half years. He speaks Telugu, Tamil, Hindi and English. We never suspected him. Three days ago when police came to this area and arrested him, we were all shocked.”
Livingston’s father, Dr Muddamalle Livingston, is a Chicago-based anaesthesiologist who graduated from Osmania Medical College in Hyderabad.
In 2005, Livingston was sentenced by the Cameron County Court to 23 years in prison for the murder of a South Texas substitute teacher and mother of three, Hermila Hernandez. He shot her with a handgun after she told him that she wanted to end their relationship. He dumped her body on a beach on South Padre Island. He was sentenced to life but the judge, Abel Limas allowed him time to get his affairs in order before starting his sentence. Livingston fled the US. The scheme that allowed him to escape to India featured prominently in a federal corruption trial in which Judge Limas and the district attorney at the time, Armando Villalobos, were both convicted under bribery charges.
Since Livingston had pleaded guilty, the judge agreed to convict and sentence him on the same day and freed him on a $500,000 bond to get his affairs in order. An agreement was reached to use the bond money to settle the lawsuit filed by the children of Hermila.
“The lawyer representing the children took $200,000 of it in fees, passing $80,000 to the district attorney and $10,000 to the judge. The attorney was sentenced to 13 years in prison. The judge received six years,” a US officials said.
CID additional DG T. Krishna Prasad said, “We had been tracking his movements and located him.” The Kushaiguda police has booked a separate case under cheating, forgery and violation of the Passport Act. Livingston was sent to judicial remand in Cherlapally and will be extradited to the US.
