Anthony Frausto, 18, is accused in gang-related killing behind
MH Safeway
San Martin – An 18-year-old Morgan Hill man will stand trial for killing a 19-year-old Gilroy man in what police called a gang-related shooting.
At the end of a two-day preliminary hearing Tuesday, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Shapero said there was probable cause for the case to go to trial.
Anthony J. Frausto is being held without bail in the Santa Clara County Jail. He has been in custody since his arrest Oct. 2.
“Some cases just need to be decided by juries,” Santa Clara County Assistant District Attorney Stuart Scott said after the hearing.
Frausto is accused of killing Luis Bautista, 19, of Gilroy, in an alleged gang incident Sept. 30 behind the Safeway grocery store in the Tennant Station Shopping Center. The gun, believed to be a .38 or .357-caliber weapon, was never found.
Bautista, who had moved to Morgan Hill from Mexico less than a year before the shooting, was thought to be a Sureño gang member. Police believe Frausto associates with Norteño gang members.
Frausto’s defense attorney, Andrew Tursi, described his client as “guileless.”
“He is respectful, polite, nothing but a nice kid,” he said. “He has never spoken in disrespectful terms of the deceased. No anger comes to his eyes when he talks about him.”
Bautista was shot four times, once each in the arm, abdomen, thigh and chest. He died from his wounds later that night. He was flown by helicopter to Regional Medical Center of San Jose after a witness drove him to Saint Louise Regional Hospital.
Police say witnesses have described seeing Bautista fleeing from a group of males before he was shot. During Thursday’s portion of the preliminary hearing, however, a Santa Clara County Sheriff’s Office Deputy and former FBI agent testified that he was off-duty in the area at the time of the shooting and witnessed the shooting.
Santa Clara County Sheriff deputy Michael Paresa told the court that he and his son were in the area about 9pm. He said he saw a white truck stop in the driveway behind the Safeway in front of a group of six to eight males who were walking in the direction of the truck, perhaps 75 feet away. Four or five people got out of the truck, Paresa said, and one of them grabbed what appeared to be a broomstick from the rear of the truck. As the smaller group of males, including the one with the broomstick, approached the larger group, Paresa said, he saw flashes from the muzzle of a gun from the larger group of males.
“He established for me that these people, the group Mr. Bautista was with, were the aggressors,” Tursi said after the preliminary hearing ended.
A suspected fellow Norteño gang member, Gabriel Mendoza, testified during Tuesday’s portion of the hearing and admitted being in the area Sept. 30. He said he was at the movie theater in Tennant Station, but denied having received a call on his cell phone from Frausto, telling Mendoza that he had just shot someone and asking him to meet him in front of the Safeway.
Morgan Hill police officer Bill Norman told the court he interviewed a gang member who told him he was with Mendoza outside the movie theater on Sept. 30. Norman said the gang member said Mendoza told him he received a phone call from Frausto.
“These are the kinds of details we’ll get into more during trial,” Scott said.
His arraignment on murder charges with a gang enhancement is scheduled for April 17.
