San Martin
– The mother of a Gilroy man who faces life in prison, begged
the judge to remember
”
the real Anthony.
”
San Martin – The mother of a Gilroy man who faces life in prison, begged the judge to remember “the real Anthony.”
Anthony Aguilera, 22, was convicted in July of two counts of attempted murder, two counts of assault with a deadly weapon, one charge of shooting into an occupied vehicle and one charge of reckless driving while fleeing police.
Friday morning, Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Shapero spoke gently to a weeping Barbara Aguirre, Aguilera’s mother, telling her to take her time.
“He has a good heart, he is not a monster,” she told the court. “He has dreams, too. He has two siblings who need him.”
Family members and friends filled a row in an otherwise empty courtroom in the South County Courthouse in San Martin. Aguilera, dressed in red and orange prison garb, was allowed to have his handcuffs removed during the hearing.
Deputy District Attorney Stuart Scott and defense attorney Andrew Tursi met with Shapero in his chambers, then returned to the courtroom. Tursi told family members what was going to happen; when Shapero entered the courtroom, he invited family members to speak.
“We know the real Anthony, the Anthony without the drugs, the Anthony without that environment,” Aguirre told the judge, asking him to remember Aguilera’s youth.
When the brief hearing ended and family and friends had left the courtroom, Aguirre was allowed to hug her son.
Sentencing is schedule for March 16.
Scott said Aguilera could be sentenced to 35 years to life or 77 years to life, depending on how Shapero rules on a motion filed by Tursi. Aguilera was found guilty in the stabbing of Scott Bargar at the Extended Stay America in Morgan Hill on Jan. 26, 2005, and the attempted murder of Dustin Baldwin in an Oct. 23, 2004, shooting incident in the parking lot of a liquor store in Gilroy.
Bargar was seriously wounded in the stabbing, but survived. No one was injured in the shooting, although police reports indicate as many as six shots may have been fired, with four striking a truck with four people inside.
“He deserves the maximum sentence under the appropriate law so that he can be held responsible for his conduct,” Scott said after the hearing.
