ALLENTOWN, Pa. — Three brothers are in jail, one of them charged with criminal homicide, after a dispute over a car bumper ended with a 29-year-old man shot to death Monday evening on North Ninth Street, prosecutors say.
Jose Rivera was shot shortly after 5 p.m. in the middle of the street near Tilghman Street and later died, Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan and Allentown Police Chief Charles Roca said Wednesday.
It started when a woman driving south on North Ninth Street saw a front bumper on a black Acura parked on the block, according to the district attorney’s office. She told police it was hers, stolen two days earlier, and that she knew it by its markings. She called Julian Nathaniel Espada, 28, on FaceTime to say she had found it.
Espada came and took the bumper off the Acura. Rivera then came out of his home, said the bumper belonged to him and took it out of Espada’s hands, the release said. Prosecutors have not said whose car the Acura was.
Espada’s two brothers, Julius Jose Cortijo, 29, and Amiliano Escobar-Adorno, 21, then arrived. Espada and Cortijo got into a fight with Rivera, and Escobar-Adorno, who had a handgun, shot Rivera during the fight, the release said. Surveillance cameras recorded the fight, and all three brothers ran off afterward.
Escobar-Adorno is charged with criminal homicide, two counts of aggravated assault and two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, court records show. A district judge denied him bail because of the homicide charge.
Espada is charged with aggravated assault and two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, and Cortijo with two counts of conspiracy to commit aggravated assault, court records show. The district attorney’s release lists aggravated assault charges against both men and puts Espada’s bail at $500,000 cash and Cortijo’s at $250,000 cash.
All three brothers, who are from Allentown, are in Lehigh County Jail and are represented by the Lehigh County Public Defender’s Office. Their preliminary hearings are scheduled for 1:15 p.m. Tuesday, Nov. 10, court records show.
Police got many 911 calls about the shooting, and officers found Rivera with a gunshot wound to the chest, the district attorney’s office said. Allentown EMS took him to a hospital, where he died, police said Monday night. Lehigh County Coroner Dan Buglio ruled the death a homicide caused by a gunshot wound to the torso.
Police arrested Espada within hours of the shooting and Cortijo the next afternoon. Escobar-Adorno was found and arrested late Tuesday evening.
Police first filed a complaint against Escobar-Adorno on Tuesday charging him with criminal homicide and two conspiracy counts, court records show. It was withdrawn Wednesday and replaced the same day by a complaint with the current charges.
Allentown police Detective Bryan Guzley and Detective Moses Miller of the district attorney’s Homicide Task Force investigated the case.
