HI HI - Sommer Ferreira, 20, Hilo, 20 Sept 2011

OkieGranny

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http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/loc...ing-death-toddler-now-indicted-mother-s-death

A Mountain View man in custody for the beating death of a toddler is now also charged with the death of the girl’s mother, the man’s former girlfriend.

A Hilo grand jury on Wednesday indicted Xavier “Pee Wee” Cortez Jr., 39, with both first- and second-degree murder for the Sept. 20, 2011, death of 20-year-old Sommer Ferreira. A no-bail bench warrant was issued for the arrest of Cortez, who’s already in jail in lieu of $1 million bail for the beating death in January 2011 of Ferreira’s 18-month-old daughter, Pomaikai K. Ferreira...

Deputy Prosecutor Joseph Lee declined to disclose any details Thursday surrounding the woman’s death, saying, “It is not your routine murder.”

http://www.hawaiinewsnow.com/story/13825544/police-investigating-the-death-of-19-month-old

The toddler was flown to the Queen's Medical Center on Oahu - where she died a week later, on January 9th.

Hilo police arrested 36-year-old Xavier "Pee Wee" Cortez, Jr. on suspicion of first-degree assault. Police say Cortez and Ferreira's mother did have a relationship. Cortez was taken into custody on January 2nd at the Riverside apartments in Hilo - where the mother and daughter were living. Two days later, he was released without being charged, pending further investigation.

Preliminary pathological reports indicate the baby died as a result of an "inter-cranial injury due to repetitive abusive head trauma."

Sommer's FB: https://www.facebook.com/sommer.ferreira
 
There seem to have been incredible delays in this case.

I could not understand why a man charged with the murder of the daughter in January 2011 would be free to murder the mother in September 2011 until I read the full article.


Cortez, a former professional boxer who shared an apartment in Wainaku with Ferreira and her daughter, was arrested on suspicion of first-degree assault on Jan. 2, 2011, after police received a report Pomaikai Ferreira had been taken to Hilo Medical Center and was experiencing difficulty breathing. He was later released by police detectives pending further investigation.

What an unfortunate decision that turned out to be.

Cortez was only actually taken into custody in January 2014.

Police arrested Cortez without incident in late January 2014 at a home in the Livingston subdivision in Mountain View for the alleged slaying of the toddler after he was charged with second-degree murder in a sealed grand jury indictment.

It appears that it took a long time for police to amass the evidence required to say that Sommer had been murdered. Her death was only reclassified as murder in June 2014, so there is obviously an awful lot more to come out about why the investigation took so long and what they discovered.

The first-degree murder charge, according to the indictment, is because Sommer Ferreira was “known by him (Cortez) to be a witness in a criminal prosecution and the killing is related to her status as a witness.”Police reclassified Sommer Ferreira’s death from a coroner’s inquest to a murder last June but released few details about her death. Police at that time said they had a suspect but didn’t release the name to the public, and forwarded the case to the prosecutor’s office
 
http://westhawaiitoday.com/news/local-news/cortez-gets-plea-deal-death-toddler

A former professional boxer once accused of murdering his girlfriend and the woman’s 18-month-old daughter in separate incidents in 2011 has accepted a plea deal in the case of the toddler’s beating death.

Jury selection was scheduled to start today in the trial of Xavier “Pee Wee” Cortez Jr., but the 40-year-old Mountain View man pleaded no contest Thursday in Kona to first-degree assault in the beating death of Pomaikai Ferreira. Court records indicate Cortez was allowed to enter the no contest plea because of civil liability.

Kona Circuit Judge Ronald Ibarra scheduled sentencing for 1 p.m. Aug. 12.
 

More from OkieGranny's link:
[...]
Kona Circuit Judge Ronald Ibarra scheduled sentencing for 1 p.m. Aug. 12. Both Hilo Circuit judges, Glenn Hara and Greg Nakamura, recused themselves from hearing the case for undisclosed reasons.

First-degree assault is a Class B felony punishable by up to 10 years in prison. Cortez could’ve been sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole if convicted of second-degree murder.

“The plea agreement is that the state can ask for 10 years in prison; Xavier can ask for any legal sentence, which includes probation and time served,” Keith Shigetomi, Cortez’s court-appointed attorney, said Saturday.

Cortez has been in custody since his arrest Jan. 28, 2014.

“I think the evidence at trial was questionable, which explains why there was a plea agreement in this case, that a jury could have found him not guilty,” Shigetomi said. “At the same time, a jury might have found him guilty, so there was a plea agreement reached that reflects the strength of the evidence.

[...]

Deputy Prosecutor Rick Damerville confirmed details of the plea agreement but said he doesn’t think Cortez will be released from jail with time served.
[...]

“The reason for the plea agreement is the loss of witness by death and the loss of another witness who just refuses to cooperate,” Damerville said.
[...]

“That poor child had a real, real tough life and a tough death, and it’s so dispiriting at so many different levels,” he said. “That human beings are capable of killing innocent children is just appalling.”

[...]

I have NO words....

:stormingmad:


Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
 
http://www.staradvertiser.com/2016/...-boxer-sentenced-in-beating-death-of-toddler/

A former Big Island professional boxer has been sentenced to 10 years in jail for the beating death of the 18-month daughter of his girlfriend...

The beating of the girl, Pomaikai Ferreira, occurred Jan. 2, 2011, in Hilo. She died at The Queen’s Medical Center in Honolulu nine days later...

On Feb. 24, Hilo Circuit Judge Glenn Hara dismissed a second-degree murder charge against Cortez for the Sept. 20, 2011, strangulation death of his 20-year-old girlfriend, Sommer Ferreira, in a Wainaku home where they lived.

That charge was dismissed without prejudice, which means prosecutors are free to refile it at a later date. There is no statute of limitations for murder.
 

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