A 30-year-old man arrested more than four years ago in connection with a deadly shooting at a south Lubbock hotel was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after admitting to a felony weapons charge.
However, Gilbert Cardona III will begin serving his decade-long sentence after he completes the 12-year federal prison sentence he was handed in 2022 for an unrelated drug charge.
Cardona, who is being held at the Victorville federal prison in San Bernardino, California for an unrelated drug charge, appeared by telephone conference in the 140th District Court to enter a plea of being a felon in possession of a firearm, a third-degree felony that carries a punishment of two to 10 years in prison.
As part of his plea, prosecutors moved to dismiss a charge of murder filed against him in the Jan. 3, 2020, shooting death of 37-year-old Joshua Gomez at the former Hotel Ava in the 3200 block of South Loop 289.
His charge stems from a Lubbock Metropolitan Special Crimes investigation sparked by a 7:45 a.m. shots fired call at the hotel where responding officers found Gomez, suffering from a gunshot wound, lying on the floor of the hotel’s lobby near the entrance.
Gomez was still conscious but believed he was dying and told an officer that his shooter was the passenger of a black BMW and identified the driver of the vehicle, the warrant states.
He was taken by ambulance to University Medical Center where he died.
A spent shell casing was recovered near the white Ford Explorer Gomez drove. However, investigators found no weapons at the scene, the warrant states.
Detectives met the driver of the BMW who told detectives he was at the hotel with Cardona and saw him shoot Gomez, who was unarmed. Another witness at the hotel, a close friend of Gomez’s, told detectives he spoke to Gomez moments before the shooting and also said Gomez was unarmed, the warrant states.
Two days later a third witness told detectives he recorded a conversation with Cardona, who admitted to being involved in a self-defense shooting. Cardona could reportedly be heard in the recording describing the Ford Explorer and said one person was armed with a military-style rifle, the warrant states.
Five days after the shooting, members of the Texas Anti-Gang Unit found Cardona at the Executive Inn in the 4400 block of Avenue Q, where he was arrested.
During his arrest, Cardona admitted to having drugs on him.
Agents found in his waistband a red pouch that contained what was later determined to be more than 188 grams of methamphetamine.
That evidence resulted in a federal charge against Cardona for possession with intent to distribute 50 grams or more of methamphetamine.
During his interview with detectives on the shooting, Cardona said he acted in self-defense, but said the man he shot was armed with a pistol. He said he saw a man, who investigators believe was Gomez, standing near the SUV and then he heard another voice coming from the vehicle giving an order to shoot him.
He said he saw the man outside the vehicle cocking a pistol while it was inside his front waistband, but never pulled the weapon out.
Cardona said he fired his gun three times, striking Gomez once in the torso.
Cardona was booked into the Lubbock County Detention Center where he remained until April 2022, when he was sentenced to 12 years and seven months in prison on the federal drug charge.
U.S. District Judge James Hendrix ordered his sentence to run consecutively with whatever punishment he is handed on the murder charge.
The plea deal offered Cardona also allowed Gomez’s family to make their victim impact statements during the hearing.
Gomez’s widow, Monica, offered Cardona, who she called a scared and weak-minded person, her forgiveness, saying that’s what her husband would have wanted.
However, she told him that while no amount of prison time would make up for his actions, he was exactly where he belonged.
She told Cardona his actions that day robbed her daughters of precious moments with their father.
Their eldest daughter, now 23, will never be able to walk down the aisle with her father at her wedding.
Their middle daughter, now 17, was robbed of a daddy-daughter dance at her Quincinera.
And their youngest daughter, who is now 6, missed out on even knowing her father. She recalled her daughter taking her first steps during mass for her husband’s funeral.
“You have shown my girls that malicious people do exist,” she said. “You took opportunities from my girls to have special moments with him.”
Monica Gomez described her husband as a kind and loving family man who had his faults but was willing to help anyone in need.
She said he took every opportunity to make people laugh.
“He knew no strangers,” she said.
Gomez’s father, Manuel, told Cardona that he hoped he suffered in prison.
“This is not fair. This is not right,” he said.
Mandi Say, the Lubbock County first assistant district attorney, said after the hearing that the dismissed murder charge was an unfortunate compromise her office had to make because of Cardona’s status as a federal inmate.
Federal inmates cannot be moved to other states to face charges involving violent felonies until after they complete their federal sentences.
Meanwhile, federal prison inmates cannot be released on parole, meaning Cardona would have to serve a majority of his federal prison sentence before he could be released to face the murder charges in state court.
By then, Say said the delay would have impacted her office’s ability to try the case.
“It would have been not an easy case had it been handled immediately after it happened,” she said. “Say it went to trial at 2022, it would have had its problems then. They are only compounded and time will only continue to compound them.”
She said the plea on the weapons charge was the best available resolution to the case and provide Gomez’s family some amount of justice.
“Justice is not always perfect for sure and that’s one of these situations,” she said. “But I had long conversations with the (Gomez’s family), went over the pros and cons. No one’s happy, really, with this, plea. I’m not happy with this plea, but it’s the best that we could do under the circumstances to get the cases resolved and an answer for the family while it was within any realm of our control.”
This article originally appeared on Lubbock Avalanche-Journal: Suspect in 2020 South Lubbock murder case pleads to weapons charge
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