Man convicted of killing Arlington Heights man in 2018 gets 65 years in prison
The justice Baldemar Esquivel and his family sought for the 2018 shooting death of his brother Vladimir Esquivel, whose body was found in his burning vehicle in a Mount Prospect parking lot, came Thursday when a Cook County judge sentenced Paul Zalewski to a total of 65 years in prison.
Zalewski, 26, received 60 years for killing the 29-year-old Arlington Heights man and five years for concealing the murder. He must serve the entire murder sentence, minus the 1,706 days he has been in custody, before he is eligible for parole.
"We have an act of senseless violence," said Cook County Judge Joseph Cataldo, "all over cannabis. That was the price of life for Paul Zalewski, a bag of marijuana."
Cataldo's sentence came seven months after jurors convicted Zalewski last March of first-degree murder, concealment of a homicide and marijuana possession.
Esquivel's friends and family members were tearful after the sentencing.
"We want that man to stay in jail and think about what he did. He deserves to be there for a long time," said Tamara Montesinos, Esquivel's friend and owner of the bakery where he worked.
Caring and hardworking, Esquivel helped out during the bakery's early days "without taking a dime," said Montesinos, who described her friend as a sweet, kind guy who had a talent for decorating cakes.
"He was my everything at the bakery ... my most precious friend," Montesinos said. "I'm left with an empty hole in my heart. ... After 4½ painful years it doesn't get easier."
Montesinos acknowledged Esquivel "made some bad decisions."
Surveillance video from inside Esquivel's apartment showed him retrieve a large bag of marijuana from a bedroom and leave the apartment about 9:30 p.m. Feb. 15, 2018. He placed a one-second phone call to Zalewski at 9:58 p.m. on the night of the murder, according to prosecutors who presented voluminous video, photographic and scientific evidence collected by Mount Prospect police.
Much of the evidence consisted of surveillance video from the Addison Court auto body shop - outside which the murder occurred - and from neighboring businesses and a nearby red-light camera.
Zalewski, who was driving a white Chevy Malibu, met Esquivel in the auto shop parking lot shortly after 10 p.m. Muzzle flashes seen in surveillance video at 10:13 p.m. indicate when the shooting took place, prosecutors said.
Esquivel's body was found shortly after midnight Feb. 16, 2018, in his burned-out Jeep Wrangler in the Cinnamon Cove condominium complex parking lot, not far from where the murder occurred.
Video surveillance showed Zalewski entering and exiting the Jeep and the auto body shop multiple times before and after the murder, prosecutors said. The body shop owner testified Zalewski asked him for gloves, gasoline and a rag that night.
Police never recovered the weapon, but they linked shell casings recovered from the Jeep to shell casings found in Zalewski's basement. A firearms expert testified all the casings came from bullets fired from the same gun.
"I don't understand how someone can do so much evil," Baldemar Esquivel wrote in his victim impact statement. "Our beloved brother Vladimir was a good person and we will always remember him that way."