By Johnny Diaz, Sun Sentinel

 

When Jill Tahmooressi receives a collect phone call from her son in a Mexican jail each week, it's her only way of knowing how he's really doing.

 

For more than a month, Andrew Tahmooressi, a Marine reservist from Weston, has been detained in Tijuana. The 25-year-old had crossed from San Ysidro, Calif., on April 1 in his family's black Ford F-150 pickup. His life's belongings, including three U.S.-registered firearms, were inside.

 

Jill Tahmooressi said Friday that her son became lost near the border after dark and made a wrong turn into Mexico while looking for housing near San Diego.

 

Mexican prosecutors have him locked up on three firearms charges. Complicating matters: his attempt to escape the La Mesa penitentiary April 6 by scaling a wall ribboned with barbed wire.

 

His mother said that when she and her husband, Khosrow "Paul" Tahmooressi, an engineer, spoke to him by phone last Sunday, he told her he was restrained by each limb to a cot in the prison infirmary.

 

"He is not doing well,'' said Jill Tahmooressi, a nurse. "He is in a lot of despair and hopelessness."

 

Andrew Tahmooressi explained his side of the story in a statement he signed earlier in this week: "I accidentally drove into Mexico with 3 guns, a rifle (AR-15), a .45 cal pistol and a 12 gauge pump shotgun with no intentions on being in Mexico or being involved in any criminal activity," Tahmooressi wrote in a signed privacy waiver this week for the office of U.S. Rep. Duncan Hunter, R-Calif., a Marine veteran himself whose district is near the border.

 

Tahmooressi received a post-traumatic stress disorder evaluation on March 20, and was to start therapy at a Veterans Affairs facility.

 

His family describes him as a tough and adventurous young man, with a Marine tattoo on the side of his torso.

 

He graduated with honors from Cypress Bay High School in Weston in 2007. He worked on a commercial fishing boat in Alaska before joining the Marines in 2008.

 

He served two tours in Afghanistan, where his mother said he suffered two concussions. Two years ago, the Marine had an honorable discharge.

 

Last year, he returned to Florida and began studying to become a professional pilot at Embry-Riddle Aeronautical University in Daytona Beach.

 

"He was struggling with concentration, depression, hyper anxiety and fearfulness,'' his mother said. "We encouraged him to find some help."

 

A spokesman for U.S. Rep. Debbie Wasserman-Schultz (D-Weston) said Friday that she "instructed her staff to get in touch with the State Department right away to ensure that Andrew's case was being handled as expeditiously as possible."

 

Florida Sen. Bill Nelson, a Democrat, is also monitoring the case.

 

"I've been in touch with State Department officials in Tijuana and our immediate goal is to do everything we can to ensure the safety and well-being of a U.S. Marine in foreign custody,'' Nelson wrote in an email. "Hopefully, we'll be able to get him home to receive the treatment he was seeking from the VA."

 

The family is asking people to visit petitions.whitehouse.gov to petition for his release.

 

http://www.sun-sentinel.com/fl-weston-marine-arrested-mexico-20140502,0,4533547.story