SANTA CRUZ — Attorneys laid out their strategies in opening statements Tuesday morning for the murder trial of Jason Cortez.
Prosecutor Ilia McKinney, a Santa Cruz County assistant district attorney, told jurors that Cortez, 29, was one of two men who moved into a Santa Cruz County Jail cell with 24-year-old German Carrillo a month before his death. At the direction of leadership for a jail gang, Cortez allegedly bound and gagged, stabbed and strangled Carrillo in October 2019, then helped cover up his death for two days.
McKinney said evidence would show that Carrillo, who himself was jailed and awaiting trial on murder charges, had been inputting pin codes from fellow gang member inmates who had not agreed, in order to pay for phone calls to his mother and girlfriend.
“That was a betrayal,” McKinney told jurors. “That’s what this case is about. It’s not about the money, it’s about betrayal. In this case, that betrayal was a death sentence.”
McKinney said she would introduce witnesses who would describe the ability of gang members to “drop out” of the gang safely, if they no longer wished to be a part of it. She also planned to introduce jail surveillance videos showing how Cortez and a third cellmate guarded Carrillo constantly and cleaned up after his death.
“You are going to hear from the two officers who discovered that German Carrillo was dead, 36 hours after the fact. On Monday, they discovered that German was not alive,” McKinney said. “When they went to the cell — you will see video — of how Jason Cortez and Mario Lozano reacted with basically a shrug.”
Cortez also has been charged with actively participating in a gang and committing murder for the benefit of that gang.
Defense attorney Zach Schwarzbach told jurors the case could be boiled down to the issues of choices, intent and unanswered questions. He said Cortez, initially jailed on a non-violent offense, found himself in a “true nightmare” in 2019 when “he was ordered into a room with two killers” at the direction of the gang. Jail corrections officers did nothing to prevent or end this decision, said Schwarzbach.
“Despite the litany of witnesses that are going to be called by the state, there will be unanswered questions,” Schwarzbach said. “Because no matter how many people they bring through that door, zero, none: the number of people you are going to hear say they witnessed Jason Cortez agreeing to commit murder.”
Schwarzbach said jurors also will not hear from the prosecution’s witnesses that anyone heard him conspire to kill Carrillo or who could tell them exactly how Carrillo died and at whose hand.
“At the end of the case, when you are faced with the reality of choice, or more importantly the lack of choice that existed for Mr. Cortez, you will understand just what a violent, dangerous institution he was living in, surrounded by the most violent people in our community, what his options were,” Schwarzbach said.
A jury found Cortez’s former co-defendant, Lozano, guilty of two murders — including Carrillo’s — in November. He was sentenced to double life sentences without parole last month.