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David Martinez, 21, of North Bergen watched as three men who were in the apartment when David Duque Soto was shot in June 2019 took guilty pleas rather than risk the consequences of a trial.
Martinez let a jury decide his fate and was convicted on March 13 in Hackensack of felony murder, armed robbery, conspiracy and weapons possession.
Assistant Bergen County Prosecutors Suzanne Cevasco and Matthew Fitzpatrick presented 16 witnesses to prove that Martinez hatched the planned robbery with the three associates who confronted and killed Duque-Soto in his Fourth Street apartment.
The plan’s mastermind, Lexie Burke of Jersey City, took a deal from prosecutors after his trial had already begun, pleading guilty to aggravated manslaughter, among other counts, in April 2022.
Two other defendants who went into Duque-Soto's duplex apartment that fateful night, Carlos Burgos of Jersey City and Raul Torres of North Bergen, took deals three weeks after Martinez was convicted.
The only defendant left, Dylan E. Rodriguez of North Bergen, is awaiting trial for allegedly supplying and then hiding the murder weapon, which investigators told Daily Voice was recovered from his attic.
Burke and others had previously gone to Duque-Soto's apartment to buy a pound of pot the night of June 29, 2019, but he purportedly pulled a gun on them and they left.
The group returned soon after, seeking revenge.
They were there all of a minute.
In an odd twist, a companion who'd been in the bathroom when the killing occurred hopped a bus to West New York, where he ran into police headquarters to report what had happened, investigators told Daily Voice.
A responding ALS unit pronounced Duque-Soto dead of gunshot wounds and acute blunt-force trauma.
Painstaking work by several of Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella’s detectives, assisted by Fairview police, led to arrests barely 48 hours after Duque-Soto was slain.
Investigators canvassed the area and found security video that showed two distinctive vehicles, which helped them develop suspects. A series of interviews that followed in Fairview and North Bergen led to the warranted searches.
In the end, Burke, Burgos and Torres pleaded guilty to a lesser charge of aggravated manslaughter in exchange for leniency at sentencing.
All were originally charged – with Martinez – with felony murder.
Martinez ended up receiving the minimum sentence for his convictions from Superior Court Judge Margaret M. Foti, who presided over his four-week trial.
Burgos and Torres are scheduled for their sentencings on May 23. Along with the aggravated manslaughter count, both men pleaded guilty to robbery, conspiracy and weapons offenses.
Burke’s sentencing has been temporarily delayed pending the outcome of the charges against the others.
Bergen County Prosecutor Mark Musella cited the “zealous advocacy for the victim and his family” of the assistant prosecutors who secured the verdicts and pleas. They were supported, he said, by Legal Assistant Catherine Fantuzzi, Assistant Prosecutor Jaimee Chasme, and Detective Jakub Glebocki.
The prosecutor also commended detectives from his Major Crimes Unit and Fairview police for their “skill and professionalism.”
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