AZ Mom, Yanira Maldonado, Set Free From Mexican Prison: 'I Thank My God'
Yanira Maldonado's prayers were answered yesterday when she was set free from the Mexican prison where she had been held for over one week. Maldonado immediately thanked God for answering her prayers and keeping her safe while she was in prison.
"Is this it?" Maldonado asked officials just after being released. "Thank you. God bless you," she added.
Mexican officials alleged that Maldonado had smuggled 12 pounds of marijuana, but in court yesterday, a judge watched a surveillance video that showed her boarding a bus with no packages. She was then set free, which came as a dream to the Arizona mother of seven.
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"Many thanks to everyone, especially my God who let me go free, my family, my children, who with their help, I was able to survive this test," Maldonado said. "I love Mexico. My family is still there. So Mexico … it's not Mexico's fault. It's a few people who you know did this to me."
Earlier this week, Maldonado gave an interview to CNN and said that she had been praying and fasting during her time in prison. The devout Mormon added that her faith had helped her through the entire ordeal.
"Reading the scriptures, reading the Book of Mormon, praying fasting," Maldonado said. "And all of the support that I've been getting from my family, my husband, my children, and everybody out there reaching out to help."
"We have high hopes," Ana Soto, Maldonado's daughter, told CNN. "So I'm just looking forward to that. Hopefully Friday, I'm praying that she will be home and be set free."
Maldonado maintains that she was set up and received terrible advice from Mexican officials, which led to her imprisonment.
"I was in shock. I'm like this is not real. This is not happening. I don't know. I thought maybe this was a set-up or a joke or something. I was just waiting for it to end, but I realized that it's real, that I'm being detained," she told ABC News.
"The evidence was very clear that she never had contact with the drug," Jose Francisco Benitez Paz told ABC.
