A Lake County judge delayed the sentencing Tuesday for a man who admitted he was the getaway driver in a November 2024 Gary pawn shop owner’s slaying.
Charles Garcia-Berrios, 33, admitted in November in Lake Superior Court to assisting a criminal, and cocaine possession in a separate case.
Gary Police responded at 11:30 a.m., Nov. 17, 2024, to We Buy Gold, 3720 Broadway Ave. The victim, Brandon Cruz, 50, of Lake Station, was found shot in the back of the head just inside the store.
The shooter, Derek Sanders, now 25, was sentenced to 45 years in June after pleading guilty to murder.
The issue for Judge Natalie Bokota Tuesday was what the assisting a criminal charge meant for Garcia-Berrios. Defense lawyer Kerry Connor said that her client was only pleading guilty to driving Sanders home, not having any other knowledge of the crime.
Bokota questioned whether that fit the language in the plea deal, whether the plea implied he knew Cruz was already shot. She ordered both lawyers to file legal memos to lay out their case, or they could redo that part of the plea’s language.
The sentencing hearing was reset for Feb. 24.
During the hearing, lawyers said Garcia-Berrios, a former gang member, was pulled into East Chicago gang life early.
His stepfather, Julio Cartagena, 26, was a high-ranking Two Six gang member later killed in May 2003 during a botched kidnapping after allegedly stealing a large amount of cocaine.
Garcia-Berrios knew Brandon Cruz when he was younger, Deputy Prosecutor Veronica Gonzalez said in court Tuesday. Cruz provided financial support from time-to-time. She asked for a 12-year prison sentence.
What led to Cruz’s slaying years later is not immediately clear.
Connor asked for a split seven-year term – four years in prison and three on probation. She noted Garcia-Berrios was on federal supervised release (probation) when Cruz died and incorporated the likely prison time he faced for violating his release.
She told the court that Garcia-Berrios’ upbringing was “quite tragic.”
Two Six gang leader Jesus “Chu Chu” Fuentes ordered other gang members to kidnap Cartagena’s children and their mother by gunpoint in November 2002 – including Garcia-Berrios days before his tenth birthday – to either get the cocaine, or the proceeds money back.
The ordeal lasted for days, Connor said in court Tuesday.
When it was unsuccessful, Fuentes ordered Cartagena’s kidnapping in May 2003. He was shot and killed in front of an apartment, Post-Tribune archives show.
Connor also represented Fuentes, who was sentenced to 22 years in June 2021.
Garcia-Berrios was sentenced to 10 years in federal prison in 2018 after admitting he and his stepbrother, also named Julio Cartagena, were in a gang-linked shootout in August 2013 on Orchard Drive in Hammond, according to court filings.
mcolias@post-trib.com
