Wrong Jonathan
spends 4 months in jail
Jonathan Rivera Soriano has been jailed for more than four months for a crime he did not commit: the shooting of two men in Kalihi.
Soriano, who had maintained his innocence since his Oct. 29 arrest, received good news Tuesday: Attempted-murder charges against him will be dismissed.
Soriano was arrested for an Oct. 18 shooting in which two men, one armed with a gun, the other with a long-bladed knife, confronted two men, ages 20 and 26, at Kaiwiula and Alokele streets, police said. The gunman shot at both men, wounding Francisco Perez in the lower abdomen and missing Talino Gaison, police said in written affidavits.
Yesterday, police charged 29-year-old Jonathan Mamaril with one count of first-degree attempted murder, two counts of second-degree murder and weapon offenses. His bail is set at $300,000.
Honolulu prosecutors informed Soriano's attorney, Myles Breiner, Tuesday afternoon that a motion to have the case dismissed was filed, and a hearing will be held Monday.
"There was a rush to judgment in this case, and as a result an innocent person has been unnecessarily incarcerated," Breiner said.
Breiner said he is not currently planning to file a lawsuit against the city. He is focused now on getting his client out of prison. But he said an apology from police and prosecutors would be appropriate.
Jim Fulton, executive assistant for the city prosecutor's office, said Soriano was appropriately charged based on the information received. "He continued to be detained based on the need to do the due diligence and investigation about who was involved," Fulton said.
Breiner said his client has maintained his innocence all along, but Fulton said Soriano did not give a detailed statement to police.
Breiner also questioned how police came to identify his client as a suspect.
Police arrested John "JP" Madrid as the suspect armed with the knife. But Breiner said Madrid was initially identified as the shooter.
According to police Detective Mark Wiese's written statement, the victims both identified Madrid as the man with the knife, and police found a steak knife in his car.
Wiese said on Oct. 23, Perez only knew the man who shot him as Madrid's friend and that his name was Jonathan.
On Oct. 27, Wiese got a call from a woman who said her friend was robbed at gunpoint by a man named Jonathan Soriano an hour before the shooting and believed he was the shooter in the other incident.
Wiese said he could not find a police report for the robbery, but found a July 2002 CrimeStoppers bulletin in which Soriano was highlighted as allegedly robbing drug users to support his own "ice" habit.
Wiese prepared a photo lineup using Soriano's CrimeStoppers photo, and on Oct. 28, Perez and Gaison picked him as the man who shot at them.
Soriano was arrested Oct. 29 for the attempted murders and on an $11,000 contempt warrant, which Breiner said was for a temporary restraining order filed by a family member.
Breiner said Soriano had an alibi: that he was at home with his family at the time of the shooting and that they had offered family members as alibi witnesses.
Madrid and his public defender told police and prosecutors from the beginning that Soriano was not the gunman, Breiner said.