By Todd Wildermuth
A Raton man who shot another local man outside a South Second Street motel has been sentenced to a nine-year prison term in connection to the June 2012 incident, the intent of which a prosecutor described as having been “to ambush and shoot (the victim) dead on the streets of Raton.”
The victim, Jeremy Bradford, suffered only a relatively minor injury after being struck in his left shoulder by one of several shots fired at him by Anthony Casas, who was upset at Bradford following a confrontation Bradford had with Casas and his brother at a nearby convenience store shortly before the shooting, which occurred outside the Colt Motel near the corner of South Second Street and Tiger Drive.
Casas, 41, reached a plea agreement with prosecutors and a judge approved the deal earlier this year. Sentencing was delayed until Casas underwent a 60-day psychological evaluation. With the evaluator’s report and Casas himself telling the judge he had drug-abuse and drinking problems, as well as anger management issues, Casas was sentenced Oct. 9 to nine years for his guilty plea to attempted first-degree murder plus a mandatory additional year for the “firearm enhancement,” meaning Casas had used a firearm in the commission of his crime. The 10-year total sentence was reduced when District Judge John Paternoster suspended one year. The approximately 15 months Casas has already spent in jail since his arrest shortly after the shooting last year also provided “confinement credit” that will reduce the time remaining on the nine-year prison term. The judge’s order included a recommendation to the state Department of Corrections that Casas receive therapy for his anger and substance abuse issues.
As part of the plea agreement, the prosecution dismissed two other charges that had been brought against Casas. Those charges were conspiracy to commit attempted murder and tampering with evidence, the latter related to allegedly altering or trying to get rid of the gun used in the shooting.
Two other Raton men involved in the shooting incident that took place at about 11:30 p.m. on a late-June night last year reached plea deals that resulted in each of them being placed on supervised probation. Robert Gutierrez, 33, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, and the prosecution agreed to dismiss charges of conspiracy, tampering with evidence, and possession of a firearm by a felon. Gutierrez is Casas’ brother, according to a police affidavit. Tanner Martinez, 21, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit attempted murder, while the prosecution dismissed a charge of attempt to commit a felony, that being first-degree murder.
Gutierrez received his sentence Oct. 16. Martinez was sentenced earlier this year, but since then has committed drug violations that violated his probation terms and have landed him in jail for varying periods, according to court records.
During a previous court hearing in his case, Casas apologized to Bradford. The prosecutor, who said Bradford was satisfied with the outcome of the case, described Casas’ actions on the night of the shooting as “impulsive and in retaliation” for the earlier altercation that night.
The three defendants in the case were arrested in the days following the shooting and it was Martinez, the driver of the car in which Gutierrez and Casas were passengers the night of the shooting, who provided police with the initial rundown of what occurred.
According to the police affidavit, Martinez told police he picked up Gutierrez and Casas at Loaf-n-Jug, which is on South Second Street a couple blocks south of the Colt Motel. Bradford, meanwhile, told police he had a verbal confrontation with Gutierrez and Casas at Loaf-n-Jug before Bradford returned to the Colt, where he was living.
Martinez told the following story to police, according to the affidavit, regarding what happened next: He drove Gutierrez and Casas from Loaf-n-Jug to the nearby Sommerset Apartments on State Street, where those two men went into an apartment and returned with Gutierrez carrying a handgun. As the car headed toward the area of the Colt Motel, Gutierrez gave the gun to Casas and told him to load it, which Casas did.
Martinez continued his account as told in the affidavit: He drove to the parking lot of the vacant Kentucky Fried Chicken restaurant — across Second Street from the Colt Motel — and Gutierrez and Casas got out of the car and began yelling at Bradford. The two men got back into the car, Martinez drove to Hester’s Yamaha — just south of the Colt — dropped Casas off behind the building, and drove back to the KFC parking lot, where he pulled in on the east side of the building out of view of Bradford across the street. Martinez said as he was pulling behind the building, he “saw Casas just south of Bradford and he was pointing the gun at him.” From inside the car, Martinez heard six gunshots and then Gutierrez, who had exited the car a few moments earlier, got back in the car and told him to drive away.
Bradford told police that while he was listening to Gutierrez yell at him from across the street, he heard four to six gunshots, so he ran back toward his room in the motel and then realized he had been shot in the left shoulder, the affidavit says. Bradford was taken to Miners’ Colfax Medical Center, where he was treated for a single gunshot wound to the left shoulder and released.
