Local News in Brief : Killer of Pacoima Man Sentenced to Prison
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A Pacoima man was sentenced Monday to 27 years to life in state prison for the kidnaping and murder of an illegal alien in 1984.
San Fernando Superior Court Judge Robert D. Fratianne imposed the sentence on Javier Cortez, 26, who was convicted last month of killing Fermin Vasquez, 22, of Pacoima.
Cortez, a butcher at a Pacoima meat market, was accused of kidnaping Vasquez at gunpoint, driving him to an area off the Foothill Freeway along Big Tujunga Canyon Road, then shooting him several times in the stomach on Sept. 19, 1984.
Cortez’s attorney, H. Russell Halpern, contended that another man, who fled to Mexico after the killing, did the shooting. Cortez and the other man were trying to determine whether Vasquez had stolen some jewelry from the other man, he said.
The probation report prepared for the sentencing called the killing a “a premeditated, planned execution.”
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