BRONX MAN SENTENCED IN THE SHOOTING DEATHS OF AN IRAQ WAR
VETERAN AND HIS BEST FRIEND
Bronx District Attorney Robert T. Johnson announced today that a 23-year-old Bronx man has been sentenced for his role in the shooting deaths of a war veteran and his best friend in November 2003.
State Supreme Court Justice Steven Barrett sentenced Apolinar Roque to concurrent maximum terms of 25 years imprisonment on two counts of Manslaughter in the 1st degree. Roque, of 1165 East 229th Street, the Bronx, pled guilty on November 16, 2006 for his role in the fatal shooting of Robert Melendez, 24, and Kristopher Jimenez, 18, during a robbery attempt at the Boston Secor Houses in the Edenwald section of the Bronx.
Melendez, who had served a tour of duty in Iraq, was shot and killed two weeks before his twenty fifth birthday and three months after being honorably discharged from the Army. He and Jimenez were sitting on a bench in a courtyard at the housing complex when Roque and an accomplice, Marlon Henry, 23, approached the pair and demanded their valuables. The two friends were shot and killed while attempting to resist the gunpoint robbery.
Henry, of 1958 Adee Avenue, was sentenced in July of 2007 to consecutive terms of 14 ½ years imprisonment on each count after pleading guilty at the start of his trial to two counts of Manslaughter in the 1st degree.
The case was prosecuted by Senior Trial Assistant District Attorney Theresa Gottlieb and Assistant District Attorney Frances Wang.
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