Sex offender pleads not guilty in boy's murder

updated 4:46 p.m. ET Dec. 5, 2007

LOUISVILLE, Ky. - A convicted sex offender pleaded not guilty Thursday to kidnapping and killing a 4-year-old neighbor who was found in a garbage truck.

A judge set a $1 million bail for Cecil Eugene New II during his arraignment in Jefferson Circuit Court.

New was charged Wednesday with killing Cesar “Ivan” Aguilar-Cano, who disappeared near Churchill Downs on June 29. He was found in the back of a garbage truck eight days later.

New, 46, is charged with murder, kidnapping, tampering with physical evidence and being a persistent felony offender. Prosecutors plan to seek the death penalty if he is convicted.

New has been on the Kentucky sex offender registry since March 2000. He was convicted of sodomy involving 11- and 9-year-old victims in northern Kentucky.

New’s attorney, public defender Jay Lambert, filed a motion asking that all evidence in the case be preserved. A court date has been set for Jan. 23.

Ivan was buried in his mother’s hometown of San Juan Tapalapa, Guatemala, in August. His mother, Rosa Cano, who is in the United States illegally, was granted a special visa allowing her to leave and return to the country as a material witness in the criminal investigation.

Cano said whoever killed her son should receive a death sentence.

"What they did to him, that's not right," Rosa Cano said.

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