Accomplice refuses to testify against accused shooting suspect
A 22-year-old Joliet man who is spending the next 45 years behind bars for his part in a fatal shooting at an Addison apartment may get more time added to his sentence.
Robert M. Meza told DuPage County Judge George Bakalis Tuesday he was not going to testify against the man authorities said actually did the shooting that left a 22-year-old Itasca factory worker dead in September 2007. Bakalis ordered Meza held in contempt of court and said he'd ask for his testimony again today when Antonio Aguilar Jr.'s two-day bench trial is expected to end. Bakalis sentenced Meza for his role in the shooting nearly a year ago.
Meza's attorney, Assistant Public Defender Valerie Pacis, said if Meza refuses to testify again Bakalis could charge him with criminal contempt of court, which technically has an open-ended sentencing range. Pacis said the longest sentence her office could find for a criminal contempt conviction was five years.
Prosecutors Steve Knight, Helen Kapas-Erdman and Joseph Lindt are barred from using Meza's videotaped confesstion to police that he drove the 20-year-old Aguilar to the apartment complex in Addison where the admitted gang members were looking to start trouble with a rival gang.
The prosecutors said Aguilar mistook an apartment filled with a group of men unwinding after a long workweek for that of two twin brothers who belonged to a rival gang. They said Aguilar shot Lorenzo Salazar-Cortez in the back four times.
Carlos Ruiz, the former head of the gang that authorities said Aguilar is a member of, testified Tuesday that hours before the shooting Aguilar told him at a party in Chicago that he was going to go to Addison to "kill a king," referring to a rival gang.
During the former gang leader's testimony, Aguilar was admonished by Bakalis to keep his hands in his lap after Knight complained that Aguilar was making threatening gestures to Ruiz. Bakalis said he didn't see Aguilar make a throat-slitting motion with his thumb across his neck.
During the lunch break, Aguilar denied making any gestures at Ruiz. He said he had "nicked" himself shaving that morning and was scratching the irritation.
Another former gang member testified that he helped Addison police by recording several conversations with Aguilar. Authorities said Aguilar confessed in the tapes to shooting Salazar-Cortez. But Aguilar's attorney, Bradley Harris, said the tapes don't reveal any confession and when Aguilar does discuss the shooting, he claims it was done with a .38-caliber weapon when the actual shooting was done with a weapon that fires nine-millimeter bullets. "They're more asinine and braggadocio statements really," Harris said.
Salazar-Cortez's brother also testified Tuesday and described the victim as an innocent bystander who was a hardworking family man.