Continuance granted for man charged in fatal shooting case
A Yuma County Superior Court judge on Thursday delayed setting a trial date for one of the three men charged in connection to a shooting last year that left one man dead.
Attorney Bill Fox of the Yuma County Legal Defender’s Office, in making a request on behalf of Gregorio Cota’s court-appointed attorney Zachery Dumyhan, asked that a trial be set in August.
He said he expected it would take four to six weeks to try the case.
Judge Roger Nelson told Fox that his trial calendar was already full, and he couldn’t fit another trial in later this year.
Prosecutor Megan Gallagher of the Yuma County Attorney’s Office added that the prosecutor assigned to the case has a trial that is set to begin in September that is expected to last through the end of the year, so he would not be available in August.
Ultimately Nelson continued the hearing until 8:30 a.m. March 30, saying he would check with another judge to see if she had room on her trial calendar.
He also asked that the prosecutor and defense attorney meet with him in chambers to see if anything can be worked out.
Cota has been charged with premeditated first-degree murder and conspiracy to commit first-degree murder in the death of 28-year-old Leonardo Melendez. He remains in custody at the Yuma County jail on a $1 million cash-only bond.
He and his brother Joshua Cota were arrested by Somerton police on July 7, 2022, while Johnny Valenzuela Escalante was taken into custody on July 10 at his residence in Maricopa.
Escalante is the registered owner of the vehicle used in the killing and is believed to have been the getaway driver, according to police.
On May 30, at approximately 3:35 a.m. Somerton police officers responded to the 400 block of East Orchid Street after receiving a 911 call reporting that a man had been shot.
Arriving officers found a man with a gunshot wound inside a garage.
The man, later identified as Melendez, was transported by a Somerton Cocopah Fire Department ambulance to Yuma Regional Medical Center, where he later died.