Actions at nightclub focus of trial
By Katie Pizza
Argus Observer
Thursday, May 1, 2008 10:56 AM PDT
Payette — A female companion of a man on trial for murder in Payette County testified Tuesday in court that while she was near the deadly shooting at the Club 7 bar in 2006 she did not see actually see the gunplay.
Hector Brito Almaraz is charged with first-degree murder in the shooting death of Gabriel Flores in the Club 7 bar in April 2006.
Payette County Prosecuting Attorney Brian Lee asked Ismelda Longoria Wednesday about her current connection to Almaraz. Longoria testified Almaraz was her son’s father.
Lee questioned her further, and Longoria testified she knew Almaraz for about a month and a half and were dating around the time of the shooting.
However, she said she was in an argument with Almaraz that night and did not spend a great deal of time interacting with him. She testified she asked him to dance a short time before she left and he told her to wait. Longoria then went out to wait on the dance floor, the vantage point where she later witnessed an altercation between Almaraz and Flores.
“I saw Gabriel (Flores) had Hector in a bear hug,” she said.
Lee asked her to elaborate.
“Was it friendly or another type?” he asked.
Longoria testified it was another type of hug and that she attempted to move from the recessed dance floor to a higher level in order to get a better view of the altercation. She said she was looking down at the stairs because the stairs had been a problem for in the past.
“I looked down because when I had been drinking I always tripped on that stair,” she said.
She testified she was sober at the time of the shooting due to her pregnancy.
“I heard a noise, looked up and saw Gabriel grabbing his side,” she said.
She then said someone told her to get down and stepped on her sandal as they knocked her to the floor.
Longoria said she did not stay on the floor for long, instead choosing to find the people she had arrived with to celebrate a friend’s birthday before leaving the scene.
She then testified she went to Priscilla Mata’s home. She also said she was aware Almaraz went into the kitchen but did not know who he spoke to or what he said while he was there. She also said she was unaware of anyone requesting to wash their clothes or changing their clothes at the residence.
“I was in my own little world at the time,” she said. “I was trying to figure out what happened.”
She said she sat on the couch and hardly spoke to anyone in the home.
“You can see people around you,” she said. “But you don’t know what they’re saying. I was in my own little world.”
She testified she did not know Almaraz was in custody until she spoke to police at her mother’s house.
Longoria asserted Weiser Police Department officers threatened her, which caused her to add inaccurate information to her witness statement.
“They threatened me,” she said. “They threatened to take my kids away. They said I would be charged with accessory to murder.”
Longoria testified officers told her in order to prevent from being charged with accessory to murder she should bring them the gun used in the incident before noon the next day.
“He asked me what happened that night and he said I was lying, that he had images of me on the dance floor and I wasn’t where I said I was,” she said. “They told me I had until noon the next day to bring the gun to them or I would be charged with accessory to murder and my kids would be taken from me.”
Longoria said she went to the police station before noon and told them she did not have the gun.
“They interrogated me and said I was lying again,” she said.
She then said Fruitland police talked to her about her timing.
“If I remember right, they said I was lucky I came in when I did because they had a warrant for my arrest,” Longoria said.
She then said she filled out a witness statement where she stated she saw a gun in Hector’s hand. On the witness stand, she admitted that was not true, but she feared she would lose her children if she did not fill out the statement the way she did.
“My kids are my world,” she said in earlier in her testimony Tuesday.
