Christina Rodriguez appears in a booking photo (Bexar County Sheriff’s Office)
In 2019, three people in San Antonio were indicted in what the state for years suggested was a wide-ranging murder-for-hire conspiracy plot that took one man’s life. Now, the alleged ringleader is a free woman after all the charges against her were dropped. Meanwhile, the prosecutor who was long in charge of the case recently resigned.
Michael Angelo Perez was shot and killed on the South Side of the Alamo City – just around the corner from his home – around 3:00 a.m. on Feb. 23, 2019. The man’s body was moved and then left in the middle of Bloom Avenue in the middle of the night, according to the indictment filed by the Bexar County District Attorney’s Office.
The victim was allegedly targeted for diluting drugs after dealers said their buyers had complained about their low-quality purchases of narcotics. The hit on Perez, the prosecution claimed, was ordered by Christina Rodriguez, who allegedly told her husband Manuel Cantu, and his brother, John Cantu, to “take care of the problem.”
An affidavit filed in the case and obtained by local NBC and The CW affiliate WOAI claimed that the Cantu brothers were pulled over by police and caught with drugs in their vehicle – prompting one of the siblings to volunteer incriminating details about Perez’s death.
In late September, John Cantu was found guilty of murder but not guilty on the more serious charge of capital murder-remuneration. He was sentenced to 70 years in prison by 186th District Court Judge Kristina Escalona. He will be eligible for parole after serving half of his sentence. He also received credit for time served in pretrial detention since his arrest in the spring of 2019.
Opening statements in John Cantu’s murder trial identified him as the shooter. The state alleged Rodriguez paid him $500 to kill Perez – and placed the blame on her for the diluted drugs in the first place.
According to a courtroom report by local ABC affiliate KSAT, the woman was in trouble with her drug supplier and wanted to pin the skimming scheme on Perez. First, the state alleged, she asked her husband to kill the man – but he refused. Then, the couple allegedly hatched the plan to have John Cantu pull the trigger. A witness testified that she overheard the scheming between husband and wife.
“He said, ‘I’ll do it,’ and then told her that he needed bullets for the gun, and she said, ‘I got you,”” Carmen Hernandez, a live-in babysitter for the married couple, testified during the only trial in the case.
Later, Hernandez told the jury she also witnessed the shooting itself.
On Monday, Manuel Cantu reached a plea deal. The state dropped his capital murder charge and he took legal culpability on one count of tampering with a corpse, KSAT reported. He was quickly sentenced to eight years behind bars for that lesser charge.
In late September, the alleged mastermind for the remunerated murder plot had her trial date set for Dec. 11.
Late Monday, she was released from jail and her case was dismissed for insufficient evidence, according to Bexar County court records.
“The law requires that our office prove each offense beyond a reasonable doubt,” Bexar County District Attorney’s Office Assistant Criminal District Attorney Pete P. Gallego told Law&Crime. “If sufficient evidence to meet this standard is not available, a case is dismissed.”
Asked if prosecutors had any plans to re-file charges against Rodridguez, the district attorney’s office demurred.
“Reindictiment or additional charges in any criminal case can be considered when additional evidence becomes available,” Gallego added.
A further wrinkle in the story concerns a personnel change in the office that had long sought to put Rodriguez behind bars.
According to KSAT, longtime lead prosecutor Andrew Fields recently resigned from the agency and the case was assigned to different attorneys.
The state, however, insists this didn’t have anything to do with the decision to drop the charges against the now-free woman.
“The departure of any particular prosecutor has no bearing on whether sufficient evidence exists to prove a defendant’s guilt beyond a reasonable doubt,” the district attorney’s office spokesperson told Law&Crime.
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