Man with 7 aliases held without bail for 2010 Lawrence murder

A man who went by at least seven knownaliases was ordered held without bail on first-degree murder charges in Salem Superior Court on Friday.

Juan Peguero, who was also known as Miguel Cordero, Obed Encarnacion-Medi, Jose Medina, Josue Medina, JosueEncarnacion and Obed Mediwas charged in connection with a 2010 Lawrence stabbing death.

He is accused of stabbing Juan Guzman Tapia, 22, of Lawrence multiple times on Bromfield Street on Nov. 23, 2010. Initially officials believed that Peguero fled to his native Dominican Republic after the murder and the Essex District Attorney’s Office worked to have him extradited to face charges.

That effort proved fruitless and from there the DA’s office worked with the State Department to discover that Peguero had illegally entered the U.S. through Puerto Rico in October of 2011 under a different identity, officials said.

Peguero had been arrested and charged federally with illegal entry and narcotics then and was sent to federal prison. Since he had no known fingerprints on file, this arrest went unnoticed.

In 2015, the Boston Field Office of the U.S. State Department Security Service conducted a nationwide search for Peguero and learned that he was in federal prison in Georgia under the alias Jose Manuel Rodriguez.

Peguero has pleaded not guilty to the murder charge. He is due back in court for a pre-trial conference on Oct. 6.