By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
Recent court action in Berrien Trial Court include sentencings, a trial delay and a request for a new trial in a 2009 murder case.
The man who killed his ex-girlfriend and her father and then took off with his two young children was sentenced last week in Berrien County Trial Court.
Alex Perez pleaded no contest but mentally ill to counts of second-degree murder last
month as part of a plea agreement and was sentenced last week to concurrent terms of 40 to 60 years in prison.
Perez, 26, is accused of killing the mother of his two children as well as her father inside their Hagar Township home in January 2016. Police found him and the two children in Colorado after the murders. Since his arrest, he has had psychiatric testing and treatment to be found competent to stand trial.
Berrien County Prosecutor Michael Sepic said last month that he agreed to the plea deal because of uncertainty about whether Perez would be convicted by a jury during a trial. He noted that Perez’s attorneys were planning to use an insanity defense which would result in him being freed if the jury believed them.
The Niles man accused of killing his wife last year has had his trial delayed as his primary defense attorney is leaving in early August to take another job. John Benton Lewis had been scheduled to go to trial Aug. 14 and is now set to stand trial Oct. 23.
Berrien County Public Defender Carl Macpherson had been defending Lewis and is leaving for a job in Portland, Oregon. Macpherson has been leading the county’s indigent defense office since it was created more than a year ago.
Police were called to the Lewis home in southern Niles Township Aug. 13, 2017 and found the body of Carla Lewis in the basement. John Lewis has claimed that two men broke into their home, killed his wife and stole her vehicle. That vehicle was found abandoned in a cornfield days later.
A hearing was held last week in Berrien County Trial Court on Jonathan Castillo’s request for a new trial. Berrien County Trial Judge Charles LaSata heard testimony from a new witness and told attorneys they have 45 days to submit briefs before he makes a ruling.
Castillo, now 38, was convicted in 2009 of first-degree murder in the stabbing death of
Michael Evans of Dowagiac. Evans was dating the mother of Castillo’s three children and was killed outside Castillo’s family’s Maple Street home in Niles after an altercation on Feb. 2, 2009.
Castillo claimed self-defense during his 2009 trial and last week a man who said he was there testified that he saw Evans take out a knife as Evans and Castillo struggled. Testimony during the 2009 trial indicated that Evans’ DNA wasn’t found on the knife, although the DNA of Castillo and his sister, Brenda Macedo, were.
Osvaldo Villafuerte said last week that he was secretly dating Macedo, who was married to someone else at the time, and lifted the curtain on her bedroom window to see the fight between Evans and Castillo. Macedo, her son and Castillo fled the scene after the stabbing and were arrested a day later in Elkhart.
Villafuerte later married Macedo and said he didn’t tell his wife or Castillo that he saw Evans take out the knife that day until a conversation in December 2015 when they were visiting Castillo in prison. Villafuerte testified through an interpreter who translated his words from Spanish.
In sentencings, a Niles man was given the chance to stay out of prison as he sentenced to probation for fleeing police and resisting and obstructing police.
Cavin Flagg, 40, of North Seventh Street in Niles, pleaded guilty as a habitual offender to third degree fleeing police and resisting and obstructing police as well as second offense driving with a suspended license and was sentenced to 18 months probation and credit for 10 days served. He must pay $2,096 in fines and costs.
The incident occurred Feb. 27 in Edwardsburg when police were called to a domestic disturbance. Flagg had already left the scene but was soon spotted by police. He fled police by car and then by foot before being arrested.
Cass Circuit Judge Mark Herman noted that Flagg turned a 93 day misdemeanor of driving with a suspended license into felonies.
Everett James Greer, 47, of Oak Street in Niles, pleaded guilty to third offense domestic
violence and was sentenced to three years probation, 270 days in jail, three years on tether and $1,318 in fines and costs. He has credit for 177 days already served. He can have no contact with the victim or any woman in a romantic relationship.
The incident occurred Jan. 16 when he struck a woman in the face and slammed her head into the steering wheel of a car. His previous domestic violence sentences were in 2013 and 2015.
Judge LaSata noted that Greer did not receive a prison sentence due to a plea agreement between the prosecutor and his attorney. He said he hoped Greer will be successful on probation but said he doubted it.
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