By DEBRA HAIGHT
BCR Correspondent
NILES – A Berrien Springs woman has been convicted of solicitation of murder after a four-day trial in Berrien County Trial Court. A jury of four women and eight men found Alana Gonzalez guilty of hiring a hit man to kill her ex-husband’s girlfriend.
Gonzalez is scheduled to be sentenced Jan. 14 before Kalamazoo County Circuit Judge Pamela Lightvoet. The solicitation of murder charge carries a maximum penalty of life or any term of years in prison.
Judge Lightvoet is presiding over the case because all Berrien County Trial Court judges recused themselves due to their association with Gonzalez’s ex-husband, Elvin Gonzalez, who is the Trial Court Family Division Administrator. In addition, Berrien County Trial Judge Jennifer Smith is married to the lead investigator in the case.
After spending one day in jury selection last Tuesday, testimony started last Wednesday with opening arguments and the first witnesses called. The final day of the trial last Friday featured testimony from Gonzalez herself, closing arguments, jury instructions and deliberations. The jury returned the guilty verdict after an hour Friday afternoon.
The first two witnesses were Elvin Gonzalez and Bonita Levi Gonzalez. Both said they met in 2017 and started dating a year later. The couple were married earlier this year in August.
Bonita Gonzalez said she first learned of the alleged plot to kill her on March 24, 2020 when a nurse at Spectrum Lakeland Hospital in St. Joseph where she works called her to the bedside of a patient. The patient, Lloyd Sims, showed her a picture of Alana Gonzalez on his phone and said that a friend of his had been hired to kill Bonita Levi.
Elvin Gonzalez next testified about the end of his marriage to Alana Gonzalez as well as how he met and started dating his current wife. He said he first filed for divorce in 2012 and withdrew that suit a year later. He ended up filing again in 2016 with the divorce finalized in 2017.
He was married to his first wife for 31 years, having met her when they were students at Andrews in 1979. He testified he had no contact with his first wife since 2017 although she continued to email and write him. He said he believes his first wife became aware of his new relationship in September, 2019 after his brother posted pictures on Facebook.
The man Alana Gonzalez hired, Quacy Roberts of Benton Harbor, also testified. Photos and a short video of one of his meetings with Gonzalez was shown jurors who also got the chance to see postcards Gonzalez sent him in jail and a contract she had with him.
He said Gonzalez paid him with a debit card and cash totaling $1,680 over a number of meetings. He said Gonzalez texted and called him numerous times and referred to what she wanted him to do as “her project.” He testified that he talked to police at least three times, including the last time when he talked to officers while he was incarcerated in jail.
Roberts was questioned about his past record which includes a 2013 conviction for larceny in a building as well as his interactions with police in January and February, 2020. He said he told his attorney about his interactions with Gonzalez and gave him copies of her text messages. The prosecutor’s office and Judge Mabel Mayfield were also contacted.
Roberts acknowledged that he told a Berrien County Sheriff’s detective “take me out of jail and I will show you everything” and said he would be willing to be wired when meeting with Gonzalez. He told the detective that “I don’t kill, I steal” and that it was “all about the Benjamins.”
Alana Gonzalez’s testimony came at the end of the trial last Friday. Gonzalez admitted that she made an error in judgment in doing business with Quacy Roberts and giving him money, but she maintained that she hired him to scare, not kill her ex-husband’s girlfriend.
She said Elvin Gonzalez filed for divorce in 2012 but withdrew that petition. She testified that while they were living apart after 2012, they would still get together for dinners and family outings. In August, 2016 they had dinner together on their anniversary. Shortly after that dinner, he emailed her that he was filing for a divorce.
“I asked many times to talk and to this day I have not been given the opportunity to talk,” she said. “It impacted me in the worse way to receive that kind of news by email. I felt very dismissed and not worthy of being listened to. It was awful. Soon after, I had to move out of my home when it got foreclosed on.”
She said the events of early 2020 were precipitated by a visit from her son who informed her that he was getting married and he and his girlfriend wanted both sets of parents to share in the costs. She said she didn’t want to have to tell her son that she couldn’t get any money.
She connected with Roberts after a chance meeting with an acquaintance of Roberts’ at a Benton Harbor gas station and her telling that man she needed to find a way to get more money. From late January through mid-March 2020, she met three times with Roberts and gave him over $1,500 in cash and a debit card.
She also left voice mail messages and nearly 200 text messages during that time. She said she went along with words Roberts used such as “38 project”, “kill” and “kos” to appear streetwise. She said she thought “kos” meant “keep our secret” rather than “kill on sight.”
She denied ever agreeing to a plan in which Roberts would kill Levi or her ex-husband. “He said do you want them dead and I said hell no. He said do you want me to scare the s*** out of her and I said yes, sure, whatever. I thought he would scare her away from my family.”
Gonzalez answered questions from the prosecutor and jury members with statements acknowledging that “I felt both of us (she and Roberts) were doing something very wrong” and that in retrospect she knows it was “a stupid decision” to continue to talk with Roberts and give him money.
When asked why she did actions that were illegal, immoral and wrong, she said her frame of mind was one of grief and anguish. “I was in a 180 degree different place, that’s why I felt shame and remorse,” she said. “… I was overwhelmed. I was making decisions then that I absolutely wouldn’t make today.”
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