Trial date set in Round Lake Beach murder
A Round Lake Park man accused in the murder of a Zion teen will go on trial April 28 after he rejected a plea deal in Lake County court Monday.
The attorney for Jose Vergara-Rebollar, 26, of the 500 block of Carol Lane, was also denied a request to bus the jury to the Round Lake Beach minimart where 18-year-old Gabriel Gonzalez was killed.
In his ruling, Judge Daniel Shanes said there are many pictures and video of the crime scene to give the jury the visuals it will need.
"It doesn't matter because the jury will ask the judge to go anyway," defense attorney Robert Ritacca said outside the courtroom.
Ritacca said he made the request to give jurors a better visual representation of what happened when Gonzalaz was shot in the parking lot of the One Stop Food and Liquor Store.
The trip would have allowed jurors to see the shooting took place in a quiet neighborhood, without gang signs, graffiti and markings on the walls, he said.
Ritacca has been trying to shield the jury from hearing about Vergara-Rebollar's gang involvement.
"This whole case is full of stereotypes," he added.
Vergara-Rebollar has been held in Lake County jail on $3 million bond after he was charged with three counts of murder in Gonzalez's March 10, 2013 death.
Authorities said Vergara-Rebollar and Jose Garcia, 19, of Mundelein, confronted Gonzalez inside the minimart at 12:40 a.m. and wrongly assumed Gonzalez was in a rival gang. After angry words were exchanged, Gonzalez pushed his way to the parking lot, where the argument continued. Garcia pulled out a .22-caliber handgun and fired 10 shots at Gonzalez, authorities said. Gonzalez died after a bullet struck his aorta.
Garcia was found guilty of three counts of murder in February and was sentenced to 62 years in prison this month.
Authorities have argued Garcia was acting as a gang enforcer for Vergara-Rebollar.
Monday's hearing started with Vergara-Rebollar turning down a plea deal that would have put him behind bars for first-degree murder but would have capped his potential prison time at 25 years. If found guilty at trial, Vergara-Rebollar could be sentenced to life in prison.
This is the second deal rejected by Vergara-Rebollar. Previously, the state offered him a 15-year sentence on a charge of armed violence, but he would have been eligible for parole after serving 50 percent of the sentence. Shanes said that deal also involved having him testifying against Garcia.
Ritacca said Vergara-Rebollar is not interested in pleading guilty to armed violence but said prosecutors violated his constitutional rights by pulling the offer off the table. The two sides will argue the issue in front of Shanes on Wednesday.