John Cantu beat murder-for-hire rap but gets 70 years for murder – San Antonio Express-News

Perez was found dead on Feb. 23, 2019, off a Southwest Side street, about 250 feet from where Cantu’s brother and sister-in-law, Manuel Cantu and Christina Rodriguez, lived and sold drugs.

Testimony established that John Cantu agreed to kill Perez after Rodriguez’s supplier found out the drugs she was selling were being diluted and pressured her about it. 

Carmen Hernandez, a drug user who babysat for the couple’s children, testified that she was in the room when the pair discussed with John Cantu a plan to blame Perez for weakening the drugs. At some point, they decided Perez should be killed, and Cantu accepted an offer by Rodriguez to pay him $500 to do it, Hernandez testified. 

Originally indicted on a charge of capital murder-remuneration, the jury that heard the case in a weeklong trial found him not guilty of the murder-for-hire. Cantu’s defense attorneys argued that he acted in self-defense of a third person, his brother, and should also be acquitted of murder, but the panel did not agree and convicted him on the lesser charge. 

Cantu chose to be sentenced by state District Judge Kristina Escalona, who presided over his trial in the 186th District Court.

Defense attorneys Daniel De La Garza and Robert Maurer II argued that, in a struggle in the couple’s garage, Perez was fighting with Manual Cantu when John Cantu shot Perez numerous times. 

De La Garza argued in the punishment hearing that he acted under the influence of sudden passion, which would allow the punishment to be reduced from a first-degree to a second-degree felony prison term. He asked Escalona to sentence Cantu to 15 years. 

Although De La Garza admitted that the jury did not buy the self-defense claim, he said Cantu, “in his mind, acted in self-defense.”

“Fifteen years is sufficient,” De La Garza argued. “It teaches him he can’t be shooting people and doing drugs.”

Prosecutor Madeline Flosi disputed the sudden passion claim and urged Escalona to punish Cantu closer to the maximum of 99 years or life in prison that a first degree felony conviction carries. 

“As far as self-defense, the jury rejected that,” she said. “You could make the leap they rejected it because it was nonsense.”

Flosi reminded the court that Cantu shot Perez four or five times in the back.

“You have bullets in the back, you are running away. That is not self-defense,” she told the court. 

Escalona took into consideration that Cantu was caught with three “shanks” while in the Bexar County jail, which are homemade knives that can be constructed out of metal or plastic. 

Flosi said the weapons prove he “would pose a danger” in prison and in the community. 

Cantu will have to serve at least half of his sentence before he is eligible for parole. He received credit for four and a half years and 23 days spent in the Bexar County jail.