A Guatemalan man questioned by police in August after the remains of a fellow Guatemalan were found in a cardboard box in Duxbury pleaded guilty Thursday to misleading a police investigation, Plymouth District Attorney Timothy J. Cruz’s office said.
Jose Milthon Freddy Azurdia-Montenegro, 55, is planning to return to Guatemala after pleading guilty in Plymouth County Superior Court in Brockton and being sentenced to time served, defense attorney Elliot M. Weinstein said.
“His only desire is to return home to his family,” Weinstein said. “I expect that he will do so as soon as possible.”
Weinstein said Azurdia-Montenegro pleaded guilty because “it was in his best interest.”
Prosecutors sought a two- to three-year sentence for Azurdia-Montenegro, Cruz spokeswoman Bridget Norton Middleton said. He spent 103 days in custody, according to online court records.
Melgar Perez had arrived in the United States on a flight from Honduras two days before his remains were found, prosecutors have said.
He was scheduled to fly back to Honduras from John F. Kennedy International Airport in New York with Azurdia-Montenegro on Aug. 2, according to prosecutors.
At Azurdia-Montenegro’s arraignment in August, Assistant District Attorney Peter Maguire said Melgar Perez was found with a 14-inch incision bisecting his abdomen that may have been made to empty the contents of his stomach.
At that hearing, Maguire did not say what, if anything, was being sought from Melgar Perez’s stomach.
State Police met Azurdia-Montenegro at the New York airport as he was trying to board his flight to Honduras, and he voluntarily returned to Massachusetts for questioning, prosecutors have said.
Investigators connected the two men after learning that Melgar Perez had listed a Massachusetts resident as a local contact, prosecutors said. That person provided authorities with access to his cellphone, which, in turn, led investigators to Azurdia-Montenegro, prosecutors said.
Authorities say Azurdia-Montenegro lied about his trip to the United States and connection to Melgar Perez, asserting that he had never left New York, had only met the deceased man once, and was unaware of his death. He did disclose that he and Melgar Perez were both in the car industry, prosecutors said.
Azurdia-Montenegro later acknowledged that he had known Melgar Perez for five or six years and had visited the Boston area during his US trip, prosecutors said.
Lawyer Scott Bradley, who represented Azurdia-Montenegro at his arraignment, had stated that his client was not involved in the drug trade and was in the area to purchase vehicles from an auto body shop and ship them back to Guatemala.
Laura Crimaldi can be reached at laura.crimaldi@globe.com.