A Margate man will remain jailed while his co-defendants were released in a shooting that wounded a Linwood man outside an Atlantic City bar last week.
Carlos Medina Morales, 23, of Margate, allegedly shot out of an SUV window and he and three others drove away following an argument outside the Cinco de Mayo bar at about 4:30 a.m. July 28.
Surveillance video shows the four men get into an altercation with patrons and security before heading to their SUV with a Pennsylvania registration, making a U-turn in front of the bar and then a flash come out of the window, according to the charges.
A 31-year-old man was struck in the abdomen. His name was not released.
The four men were eventually arrested, and a gun without a serial number was found in the vehicle during a warranted search.
All four defendants were reported to live in Philadelphia, but it seems they have ties to the area.
Carlos Medina MoralesMedina Morales lives in Margate, where he is a cook at a restaurant, attorney Robert Boney said during his detention hearing Monday.
The Philadelphia address on his charges is where his 5- and 6-year-old children live with their mother, Boney said.
Attorneys for co-defendants Felix Gomez-Villa and Alexis Jeromino Torres, 22, said each works at a restaurant in Longport. Neither attorney named the business, so it was unclear if they work together.
Javier Saloma, 19, has ties to the area, including working construction which he told the judge takes him into the state as well as Delaware.
He also coaches youth soccer in Philadelphia, attorney Stephen Funk said.
None of the defendants seem to have criminal histories, which was a factor in Judge Jeffrey Wilson releasing Gomez-Villa, Torres and Saloma on Friday. He went against the recommendation of the public safety assessment, or PSA, which is used to help decide whether a defendant is detained under bail reform.
Javier Saloma, Alexis Jeromino Torres and Felix Gomez-VillaJudge Dorothy Garrabrant ordered Medina Morales held Monday, following the recommendation of the PSA.
Her decision came after Boney argued that the state's proofs were suspect since it first claimed the shooter was in the back of the vehicle, when it had been determined that his client was driving at the time.
But Assistant Prosecutor Despina Hess clarified that Saloma originally told police that he was in the front passenger seat when someone shot from the back seat.
Police then told him that surveillance showed the back and driver's side windows were up at the time of the shooting and that the muzzle flash was seen coming from the front passenger window. It was then that Saloma claimed the driver shot, Hess read from the affidavit.
Saloma was in the driver's seat when he and Gomez-Villa were arrested about an hour after the shooting, sitting in the parked SUV in the first block of N. South Carolina Avenue.
Saloma got out of the vehicle when the officers ordered him, but Gomez-Villa is accused of refusing orders and charged with obstruction.
"The obstruction probably came from the lack of understanding of the officers," defense attorney Tom Rossell said during Gomez-Villa's detention hearing Friday.
Rossell noted that his client does not speak English, and also that the defendant claimed he was sleeping in the vehicle when police arrived.
