The two Pharr brothers accused of killing their stepfather last month had their bonds reduced after their attorneys filed a writ of habeas corpus for each of them.
Brothers Alejandro Santos Treviño and Christian Treviño, both 18, along with their friend, Juan Eduardo Melendez, were arrested for the murder of Gabriel Quintanilla, 42, who they believed had sexually abused their 9-year-old stepsister.
The teens are accused of severely beating Quintanilla Jan. 20. A farmer found Quintanilla’s body a day later in the vicinity of McColl and Whalen roads in McAllen.
The bond was originally set at $1.5 million for Christian and Melendez, and $1 million for Alejandro. Those bonds were reduced to $150,000 for both brothers Thursday.
Judge Joe Ramirez of the 464th state District Court made the decision after defense attorneys brought in two witnesses, a neighbor named Nora Garcia and a cousin named Alan Andrade, to testify on the brothers’ behalf at a bond reduction hearing Thursday morning.
“Obviously, everyone knows their immigration status is in flux and in question,” Carlos A. Garcia, who is representing Christian, said after the hearing. “(Nora) testified that she met them because they were neighbors. Her children were about the same age as the two boys. She’s always known them to be hard working young men who were working up to — one of them was working up to the point of their arrest, and the other one had been focused more on school.”
Both witnesses provided the judge with positive sentiments about the teens, he said..
“Up until that point, they were high school students who were respectful, who are obviously in a difficult situation,” Garcia said. “But for the fact of their poverty, these are kids who would’ve qualified for DACA (Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals). I’m not an immigration lawyer, but they fit the initial elements as they were brought here as children at no fault of their own.”
He portrayed his clients as “children who were studying.”
“They were children who were working, who were doing what they could to support their families and to also provide a service for those of us who go out and eat at restaurants and eat the food that’s picked from our fields,” the attorney said. “These kids are then confronted with the situation that they were confronted with, so we asked the court to consider a bond reduction.”
According to Garcia, prosecutors argued about the brothers’ immigration status. He said there was concern about the 18-year-olds going into immigration custody and being lost by the state. In January Immigration and Customs Enforcement officials placed detainers on them upon their release.
Stephen Christopher Barrera, who is representing Alejandro, said he and Garcia are working with immigration attorneys to try to get the brothers released from jail.
“Ideally, we do have immigration attorneys that are helping us with this,” Barrera said. “We would like to see if there’s a way to get them out. The state’s charges are one of the things holding them, but the other thing holding them is an immigration hold. At least for the two young men, we would like to start a process to see if we can get them out.”
An online petition calling for their release was also created, and it has since garnered over 496,000 signatures.
The case remains in the early stages and Barrera said a date has not yet been set for a follow-up hearing.
