by WorldTribune Staff, April 30, 2024
George Alan Kelly, the Arizona rancher charged in the fatal shooting of an illegal alien near the Mexico border, will not be retried following last week’s mistrial in the case, prosecutors said.
Kelly, 75, was charged with second-degree murder in the Jan. 30, 2023 shooting of Gabriel Cuen-Buitimea. A lone juror was reportedly the reason for the mistrial.
“Because of the unique circumstances and challenges surrounding this case, the Santa Cruz County Attorney’s Office has decided not to seek a retrial,” Deputy County Attorney Kimberly Hunley told Santa Cruz County Superior Court Judge Thomas Fink on Monday.
Fink agreed to dismiss the case. He said a hearing would be scheduled later to determine if it would be dismissed with prejudice, which would mean it couldn’t be brought back to court.
During the trial, prosecutor Mike Jette said Kelly recklessly fired nine shots from an AK-47 toward a group of men on his property, including Cuen-Buitimea. Kelly said he fired warning shots in the air, but he didn’t shoot directly at anyone.
Investigators found nine spent bullet casings from Kelly’s AK-47 on the home’s patio, but the bullet that killed Cuen-Buitimea was never recovered.
Earlier, Kelly had rejected an agreement with prosecutors that would have reduced the charge to one count of negligent homicide if he pleaded guilty.
1. The George A. Kelly case is worse than you think. Departments we depend on to protect us, went out of their way to prosecute George based on the hand crafted “testimony” from a twice convicted foreign gun runner… and it only gets worse from there.
George and Wanda, his… pic.twitter.com/UHLvPJREyc
— Rosie Memos (@almostjingo) April 29, 2024
Prosecutors won’t retry rancher George Kelly after mistrial added by Editor Two on
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