GRAND JURY CHARGES SUSPECT WITH THREE COUNTS OF MURDER IN THE STABBING DEATH OF AN OFF DUTY NARCOTICS DETECTIVE

Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that a grand jury has indicted 28 year old Luis Gonzalez (a.k.a. Luis Gomez) on three counts of murder in the death of an off duty undercover narcotics detective.

34 year old Jaime Betancourt was stabbed in the chest on Sunday, March 31, 2002 while standing in the doorway of the apartment that he shared with his girlfriend. Betancourt was rushed to Lincoln Hospital where he was pronounced dead.

The grand jury charged Gonzalez with Murder in the 2nd degree under three different legal theories. Gonzalez was charged with intentional murder in causing the death of the victim, murder in a manner "evincing a depraved indifference to human life" and murder during the commission of a felony. The felony murder charge was the result of the defendant’s alleged action in illegally entering the vestibule of the building before making his way to the victim’s apartment.

Betancourt was killed while intervening in a dispute between his girlfriend and Gonzalez, the girlfriend’s ex-boyfriend and father of her child.

Gonzalez fled immediately after the homicide and eluded police for nine days before he was taken into custody in Miami, Florida. A second ex- girlfriend of the defendant, Claritza Fernandez, of Bayonne, New Jersey, was indicted by a Bronx grand jury last week and charged with Hindering Prosecution in the 1st degree. It is alleged that Fernandez helped Gonzalez elude authorities by driving him to certain locations and then knowingly making false statements about his whereabouts even though she was aware that he was a suspect in a homicide investigation.

Fernandez is scheduled to be arraigned on her indictment on April 25, 2002 in Part B. Gonzalez will be arraigned on May 3, 2002 in Part B. Both defendants are being held without bail.

Chief Trial Counsel Assistant District Attorney Daniel McCarthy and Assistant District Attorney Veronica Seoane are prosecuting both cases.