Murder-for-hire plot revealed in Pueblo case
Three times this year, people linked to a Pueblo street gang made attempts to kill a Pueblo man identified only as R.M. in court documents.
The documents, filed in U.S. District Court in Denver, outline the plot:
• On May 30, someone shot R.M.
• On July 11, Ricardo “Rico” Estevan Suazo, 26, allegedly shot R.M. in the stomach.
• In September, Suazo, then in jail, alternately tried to hire a member of the Sureños’ East Side Dukes gang known as “Crazy,” an undercover police officer and a fellow inmate, to kill R.M.
Already facing first-degree assault and serious bodily injury charges for allegedly shooting R.M. in July, Suazo, along with his girlfriend, Reina Ashley Gonzales, 30, were indicted Wednesday in federal court on two counts each of conspiracy to commit “murder for hire.”
The succession of murder attempts was investigated by agents from Laredo, Texas, and members of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives’ Pueblo Gun Task Force, which includes Pueblo police detectives.
An affidavit gives a gritty description of how an undercover agent and the task force built a federal case against Suazo and Gonzales over a period of several weeks in September.
Being locked up in the Pueblo County Detention Facility allegedly didn’t deter Suazo from attempting to complete the murder he was first charged with when he allegedly shot R.M. in May, according to ATF records.
At 12:20 p.m. on Sept. 10, a confidential informant, or C.I., called B.R., who is an undercover Pueblo detective on the task force, and said Suavo was trying to finish the job by hiring “Crazy,” the nickname for a Sureño named Robert Tenorio, 32.
During the same phone call, the C.I. handed the phone to Suazo, who was in the same cellblock. Suazo, identifying himself as “Rico,” began speaking with detective B.R., the affidavit said.
When B.R. asked Suazo what he wanted, Suazo said he “had a job” for him and that B.R. should speak to his “home girl” Gonzales and she would tell him everything. The detective asked if the woman knew what job he wanted done and Suazo allegedly replied: “No, no, Reina’s gonna understand. Just talk to her straight up. She’ll know what’s up.”
B.R. asked about the payment for the job, and Suazo told him the woman knows “exactly everything,” the document says. He allegedly led B.R. to believe that when he killed “R.M.”, he would get paid “very quickly.” Suazo allegedly gave the detective her phone number. Gonzales agreed to meet with B.R. in the Big “R” Farm & Ranch Supply parking lot. They met there at 10:40 a.m. on Sept. 14, and Gonzales told the undercover officer that the payment would be $10,000, the court record says.