ALLENTOWN, Pa. — A Lehigh County jury convicted an Allentown man Thursday night of attempted homicide for firing into a crowd on West Turner Street in February 2024, wounding four people, prosecutors said.
Axel Suarez Vidal, 25, was also convicted of three counts of aggravated assault causing serious bodily injury and seven counts of recklessly endangering another person, District Attorney Gavin P. Holihan’s office said in a release Friday. He faces a possible sentence of 44 to 88 years in state prison.
The verdict came less than three months after a judge freed Suarez Vidal on $1 bail under Pennsylvania’s prompt-trial rule, after nearly two and a half years in jail as his trial was repeatedly delayed, according to the court docket. Lehigh County Judge Anna-Kristie M. Marks granted an oral motion to revoke that bail Thursday.
What’s next
Suarez Vidal remains in Lehigh County Jail, the release said. Sentencing is set for 1:30 p.m. Dec. 8 before Marks, and the docket lists the case as awaiting a presentence investigation.
He faced four counts each of attempted homicide and aggravated assault. The release lists the convictions as “charges including” those above and does not give a verdict on each count, and the docket did not yet show verdicts by count Friday.
Released under Rule 600
The docket shows Suarez Vidal was denied bail after his arrest and remained in jail while the court continued or moved six trial dates. His first lawyer withdrew in February, and defense attorney Robert E. Goldman joined the case in July.
Rule 600 generally bars holding a defendant in jail before trial for more than 180 days, not counting delays the defense causes.
Marks dismissed motions Suarez Vidal filed himself in January seeking release under the rule. In July, she denied Goldman’s requests to dismiss the case but on July 22 granted his motion to release Suarez Vidal on $1 nominal bail. Bail was posted July 27, and the trial began Monday.
The shooting
Police were called to the 1800 block of West Turner Street shortly before 7 p.m. Feb. 20, 2024, the release said. Three women and a man were shot, and all survived. One woman was in critical condition before she recovered.
Two women, one of whom had been in a relationship with Suarez Vidal, had gone there to fight over text messages, according to the release. During the fight, Suarez Vidal argued with one of the people later shot, then pulled a gun and fired into the crowd, prosecutors said.
Several victims identified him as the shooter, according to the release. It said he fled to Delaware and surrendered to police the next day, and the gun was never recovered.
At the time, the district attorney’s office said in a release posted by Allentown police that Muhlenberg College briefly went into lockdown and that investigators found no connection to the college.
Senior Deputy District Attorney Ashley N. Troxell and Chief Deputy District Attorney Jeffrey D. Burd prosecuted the case.