DEPORTED ORPHAN DIES IN HOMELAND

Minor Drug Offender, Sent Back To Brazil, Slain Amid Desperate Plot To Return To U.s.

CAMPINAS, Brazil - An Ohio man deported to Brazil four years ago for a minor drug infraction was gunned down here by drug-dealing teens.  Friends say he had sought the teens' help to smuggle guns into Brazil and use the proceeds to sneak back into the United States.

The case of Joao Herbert, 26, gained international attention in 2000, after his adoptive parents' inability to obtain citizenship papers for him, along with newly toughened immigration laws and Herbert's first-offense conviction for selling marijuana forced his deportation.

Herbert left Brazil at age 8 and grew up in Wadsworth, Ohio.  An orphan, he had no family in Brazil and as an adult he spoke no Portuguese.  Sending him back there would be tantamount to "a death sentence," his adoptive mother, Nancy Saunders, warned at the time.

In Brazil, Herbert settled into a small brick house in Campinas, an industrial town 60 miles north of Sao Paolo.  It's on the edge of Sao Pedro de Viracopos, one of the city's more notorious slums.

Herbert taught English in Campinas and even opened a school, the English University.  He moved in with one of his pupils, Paula Alexandre, 30.  They had a daughter in November.

Herbert's life came apart early this year just months after his baby daughter, Nayrah, was born.  He separated from his common-law wife, closed the school and was using drugs, friends said.  He also concocted a desperate plan to sneak back into the United States and live under a new identity.

Herbert's idea was to purchase submachine guns in neighboring Paraguay, and smuggle them back into Brazil.

Herbert planned to use the profits to cross into the United States illegally and start a new life.

Tuesday, Herbert and some friends prepared for a barbecue and planned to watch the Brazilian national soccer team play a televised exhibition match.

Three teenagers from the neighboring slum knocked on his door around 1:30 p.m.  Friends say they warned Herbert that the kids were trouble.

The youths had been driving with Herbert two weeks earlier when police stopped them, found two guns and confiscated the car.  The teens now wanted Herbert to repay them for the guns' loss.  He had bought marijuana from the teens, Herbert's friends said, and intended to use them to take his weapons-buying plan to drug traffickers.

Herbert, trying to settle matters with the teens, walked off with them.  Once they had turned the corner, shots rang out.  Someone shot him four times in the head and chest.  Bleeding profusely, Herbert staggered about 50 yards toward his one-story home and fell face-up onto red clay with his eyes wide open.

"I believe he came to Brazil to die," said Alexandre.