Jurors to deliberate Monday in fatal Downtown shooting

After spending hours “stalking” their victim, Jonathan Martinez and a co-defendant fatally shot the wrong man in Downtown Albuquerque, prosecutors told jurors Friday in Martinez’s murder trial.

Prosecutors allege that Martinez, 23, drove Asad Moody to Fourth and Central in 2021, where Moody fired at least eight shots from an AK-47, fatally injuring 19-year-old Tevonte Robbins and seriously injuring a second man.

Attorneys made closing arguments Friday on the fifth day of Martinez’s trial on charges of first-degree murder, conspiracy to commit first-degree murder and aggravated battery before Judge Bruce Fox. Jurors will resume deliberations Monday.

Martinez’s attorney, Stephanie Gulley, told jurors that police had viewed some 50 hours of security video and failed to find an image showing that Martinez drove the getaway car.

“All of that footage, and you heard (APD Detective Aaron) Brown say that he can’t identify Martinez as the driver of the vehicle,” Gulley told jurors. Prosecutors also failed to prove that Moody fired the fatal gunshots, she said.

“They need you to believe that Mr. Moody killed Mr. Robbins,” Gulley told jurors. “They haven’t proven that to you.”

Moody, 22, pleaded guilty in May 2023 to second-degree murder and other charges and sentenced to 18 years in prison. Moody did not testify in Martinez’s trial.

Gulley also told jurors that investigators had no leads for three weeks after the killings and targeted Martinez as a “scapegoat.”

Jurors this week viewed security video from Amy Biehl Charter High School that showed a man step out of a car on Fourth Street and fire gunshots north toward Central Avenue, where Summerfest revelers walked in the street around 2:30 a.m. July 10, 2021.

“Eight shots were fired in a Downtown area on a Friday night, Saturday morning during Summerfest,” prosecutor Christine Jablonsky said during closing arguments.

“There are people on the street — pedestrians,” she said. “There are cars driving by. Eight shots fired from a high-powered rifle directly at human beings.”

Robbins was fatally shot in the face. His companion, Kevin Johnson, who was 16 at the time, testified on Tuesday that a single gunshot passed through his abdomen and lodged in his left arm.

Another gunshot struck the windshield of an Albuquerque Police Department patrol car, spraying the officer with glass and bullet fragments and causing him to believe he had been shot, the officer testified this week.

Prosecutors allege that Martinez and Moody were looking for a man who had beaten Moody a week earlier Downtown. Moody was angry about the beating and sought out Martinez to help him get revenge, Jablonsky said.

The pair misidentified one of Robbins’ companions as the man they were seeking and targeted the group as they were walking on Central, she said.

“They stalked their victim for an hour before all of this happened,” Jablonsky said. “They followed Robbins and Kevin Johnson around the Downtown area before finally talking the opportunity to take them out.”

Jablonsky told jurors that cellphone and social media records show that Martinez and Moody spent about 16 hours together on July 9-10 — much of it in Downtown Albuquerque — including the time Robbins was fatally shot at Fourth and Central.

Security video also shows Martinez’s car circling through a parking lot at Second and Central, where Robbins and his friends had parked before walking west on Central, Jablonsky said.

“The defendant definitely intended that Asad Moody be able to accomplish his task of eradicating the people who had beat him up on July 3,” she said.

Charges were dismissed in August 2022 against a third co-defendant, Darryus Chavez, 25, because evidence linking him to the incident was security video that lacked sufficient clarity to identify him, court records show.