Shooting suspect sentenced to prison

By Kevin O’Brien

A 26-year-old Abbotsford man has been sentenced to a little over a year in prison for his role in a shooting last year at the Northside Apartments. Carlos Ruben Santiago Gonzalez, 26, was sentenced Monday to one year and one month in state prison, plus two years and 11 months of extended supervision. The sentence was for a charge of second-degree recklessly endangering safety. A charge of attempted first-degree intentional homicide was read into the record and dismissed.

District attorney Melissa Inlow was seeking three years in prison, followed by two years of extended supervision.

Santiago Gonzalez turned himself into police about a month after the Feb. 16, 2020, shooting and was in jail for over a year before he was released on a $25,000 signature bond following an April 21 plea hearing.

A second suspect, Joennuel Moctezuma Torres, fled the area after the shooting but was eventually arrested in Puerto Rico by U.S. Marshals in March. He was returned to Wisconsin and has been in the Clark County Jail on a $250,000 bond ever since.

A three-day jury trial for Moctezuma Torres has been scheduled for early April, with a final pre-trial hearing on March 16.

Inlow told Judge Scott L. Horne earlier this year that a statement from the victim indicates that Moctezuma Torres was the “primary actor” in the shooting.

A jury trial for Santiago Gonzalez had initially been scheduled in April, but that was called off after the DA and Santiago Gonzalez’s defense attorney, Roberto Ledesma, reached a plea agreement.

At a hearing on Monday, Santiago Gonzalez was found to have breached that plea agreement by disposing of a firearm involved in the shooting.

The motive behind the shooting has never been discussed publicly. Shortly after it occurred, the victim told police that the defendants had been harassing him at work, but he didn’t know why.

The victim never dialed 911, nor did anyone else at the apartments, but he was given a ride to the emergency room in Medford, where he was treated for non-life-threatening injuries.

Surveillance cameras at the Northside Apartments captured Santiago Gonzalez and Moctezuma Torres leaving the scene of the shooting armed with handguns, according to a 2020 press release from the Colby-Abbotsford Police Department.