A Federal Way man was sentenced to nearly 32 years in prison Tuesday after committing what a prosecutor called a “totally senseless” killing in September 2004.
Leonel Fernando Cortez, 27, was convicted Feb. 1 of first-degree murder by a Snohomish County Superior Court Jury.
On Tuesday, Judge Ronald Castleberry imposed the maximum penalty, saying that the trial uncovered no solid motive for the killing of Florencio Perez-Silva, 24, of Everett.
Deputy prosecutor John Adcock told Castleberry that Cortez is a “smirking, unrepentant, cold-blooded killer, your honor.” He asked the judge to put Cortez in prison for as long a time as possible.
“He cannot be allowed to be among the people” in this society, Adcock said.
The jury found that Cortez settled a dispute with Perez-Silva by shooting him twice in the head.
The two men met just an hour or two before the fatal shots when they gathered with mutual friends at an apartment complex in south Everett.
Adcock told the jury that the dispute started when Perez-Silva insulted Cortez’s girlfriend. That prompted Cortez to plot how to get Perez-Silva away from a gathering on the pretext of fighting him.
Evidence showed that Cortez borrowed a pistol from another man at the gathering and then drove away with Perez-Silva to a cul-de-sac where Perez-Silva was shot. The gun apparently malfunctioned, and several bullets were found near the body.
The evidence included a confession by Cortez to a Seattle homicide detective soon after Snohomish County sheriff’s officers arrested him.
The confession came after sheriff’s detectives spent more than an hour trying to get Cortez to talk about the shooting, but the Spanish-speaking defendant doesn’t speak fluent English.
A Seattle homicide detective who speaks fluent Spanish quickly got a confession, according to the testimony.
Both Perez-Silva’s older sister and his girlfriend also asked the judge for the maximum penalty.
Jon Scott, Mill Creek defense attorney, said that the low end of the sentencing range, in this case 25 years, is punishment enough, a “big hammer.”
“There’s really nothing low about it,” Scott told Castleberry.
“He has worked, worked hard,” Scott said. “He didn’t use drugs or alcohol,” he said, adding that Cortez has no previous criminal history.
The judge said that because of the bullets found around the body, there was evidence that Cortez tried to shoot Perez-Silva more than twice, and therefore he agreed the killing was a “senseless, cold-blooded murder.”
Reporter Jim Haley: 425-339-3447 or haley@heraldnet.com.
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