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By
Shayna Sefret [former]
- July 29, 2023
Court
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Daily Stories
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Non-Fatal Shooting
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Shooting
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Suspects
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Victims
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On June 28, a Baltimore City Circuit Court judge postponed two co-defendants’ attempted murder case to reception court next week after counsel was unable to agree on a trial date.
The assistant state’s attorney for both Jossue Enrique Portillo Ruiz and Miguel Angel Riva Salvador first requested that Judge Melissa K. Copeland postpone the defendants’ trial as one of her witnesses, a detective, was unavailable to come to court due to mandatory training.
Defense attorney James Sweeting III, who represented Ruiz told Judge Copeland that he was currently looking into exculpatory information for his client and was not yet ready for trial.
Salvador’s, 20, defense attorney, Michael Munafo, said that he was ready for trial, citing that he believed the victim was purposefully not coming to court and may be involved in another homicide. The prosecutor responded that the victim had actually returned to Honduras for safety concerns.
Given the confusion on whether the two men would be tried together or separately and the inability to decide on a trial date, Judge Copeland told counsel to return to reception court on July 5 to discuss the details before Judge Melissa M. Phinn.
Salvador is facing charges of first- and second-degree attempted murder, first-degree assault, discharging firearms, use of a firearm in a felony violent crime, having a handgun on his person, having a handgun in a vehicle, reckless endangerment, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree assault, conspiracy to use a firearm in a felony violent crime, conspiracy to have a handgun on his person and having a handgun in a vehicle on a public road in connection to an incident on Oct. 24, 2022.
On the day of the incident, officers responded to the 6300 block of E. Pratt Street in reference to a shooting. When they failed to locate a victim, they went to Johns Hopkins Bayview Hospital and found a male with a gunshot wound there.
The victim’s friends told the officer that the victim was shot by an unknown male after an altercation with a group of hispanic kids. One witness to the scene positively identified Salvador as the shooter. After a taped interview with Ruiz, he admitted to driving Salvador away from the scene.
During Wednesday’s proceeding, the prosecution offered Ruiz a plea offer of 40 years, suspending all but 20, and four years of supervised probation for attempted first-degree murder, and Salvador a plea offer of 50 years, suspending all but 30 years, with five years of supervised probation for attempted first-degree murder and a concurrent five years without parole for firearm use in a felony violent crime.
The defendants rejected their respective plea offers.
Ruiz is charged with first- and second-attempted murder, first-degree assault, accessory after the fact to first- and second-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree assault, conspiracy to use a firearm in a felony violent crime, conspiracy to have a handgun on his person and having a handgun in a vehicle on a public road.