Rivera-Alvarado and Figueroa.jpg
Rene Figueroa, left, was found not guilty of all charges in the South Side Bethlehem gunbattle trials. Rene Figueroa was convicted of involuntary manslaughter in the death of Yolanda Morales and aggravated assault for paralyzing Angel Figueroa.
(lehighvalleylive.com file photos)
A Northampton County jury cleared one of the alleged gunmen in the South Side Bethlehem gunbattle and found his co-defendant not guilty of the most serious charges Friday.
Rene Figueroa offered the same blank stare he's carried the past three weeks as the jury of six men and six women convicted him of the involuntary manslaughter of Yolanda Morales and aggravated assault of Angel Figueroa. The jury also convicted him of carrying a firearm without a license and receiving stolen property -- the .40-caliber handgun he used to shoot his two victims.
Javier Rivera-Alvarado showed no reaction either as the jurors found him not guilty of all 20 charges against him, including three counts of attempted homicide. Soft cries of relief and anguish rose from the audience as Judge Anthony Beltrami noted that Rivera-Alvarado could be released from prison with no other charges pending.
"My client was facing the death penalty and he got convicted of a misdemeanor," said Jack McMahon, Rene Figueroa's defense attorney, after the verdict. "I think it's a complete repudiation of the government's theory."
Frustrated friends and family of the victims filed out of the courthouse, declining to comment. Many of them got onto their phones and wept as they spread word of the verdict. Angel Figueroa waved away reporters as his power wheelchair carried him away from the courthouse.
Victims anything but, defense says
McMahon and Ed Andres, Rivera-Alvarado's defense attorney, assailed the prosecution's account of the Dec. 2, 2012 shootout. Police said Rivera-Alvarado started the deadly firefight by pulling a gun on Orialis Figueroa outside the Puerto Rican Beneficial Society and shot him, Morales and Luis Rivera before Orialis Figueroa knocked him out with a baseball bat.
Witnesses testified Rene Figueroa then stepped out of a nearby parking lot and fatally wounded Morales and paralyzed Angel Figueroa. Orialis Figueroa took Rivera-Alvarado's gun and shot Rene Figueroa as he retreated into the club, police said.
But the defense teams pinned the fault on the alleged victims, saying Orialis Figueroa and his nephews attacked Rivera-Alvarado after mistaking him for a man who started an altercation inside the club. Orialis Figueroa and his nephews, whom McMahon dubbed the "Magnificent Seven," lied on the witness stand about what happened or who hid the baseball bat after the fight. Oriais Figueroa fired into the air in an effort to scare Rivera-Alvarado's attackers away, the defense teams argued.
"It was a smart jury, a conscientious jury. I thank them. My client thanks them," McMahon said.
Murder-for-hire charge still awaits
First Assistant District Attorney Terry Houck noted the case was extraordinarily difficult. Investigators had to make sense of a crime scene that spanned 60 yards of East Third Street, the inside of the club and trauma units of St. Luke's University Hospital in Fountain Hill. At least 18 shots were fired, and a forensic expert said the bullets in Morales' body were too badly damaged to link to a weapon.
"The good news is a very dangerous man is off the streets for a while, though not as long as we'd like," Houck said after the verdict.
Prosecutors will seek the 10- to 20-year maximum sentence for the aggravated assault, and the other charges can be run consecutively, Houck said. The involuntary manslaughter charge carries a maximum sentence of two-and-a-half to five years.
Beltrami did not set a sentencing date for Rene Figueroa. He still faces charges for allegedly smuggling a cell phone into the Northampton County Prison and allegedly soliciting a Northampton County Prison inmate to kill witnesses of this trial.
In the murder-for-hire allegations, police said Rene Figueroa offered to bail James Martin out of prison and pay him $50,000 for killing Orialis Figueroa and his wife Shajuan Hungerford. Martin testified about Rene Figueroa's plan during the gunbattle trials, and prosecutors presented audio tapes of Rene Figueroa instructing his wife Sonia Panell about how to bail out Martin.
McMahon dismissed Martin's testimony as a dangerous inmate seeking a plea deal and a prosecution team desperate enough to give it to him to shore up a weak case. McMahon also represents Figueroa on those charges but said after the verdict, "I'll worry about that later."
Federal prosecutors allege Panell tried to hire another killer to assassinate Orialis Figueroa, Hungerford and Angel Figueroa. The would-be hitman was actually an FBI informant who recorded their conversations, according to court documents. Hope Lefeber, Panell's defense lawyer, claims her mentally and emotionally vulnerable client was entrapped by the informant so he could stay in the FBI's good graces.