Remaining charges dropped against Tellez

The California attorney general’s office has dismissed the remaining charges against Jacob Tellez in connection with last year’s shooting death of Bernabed Hernandez-Canela, the Sun-Star has learned.

Tellez, 18, was arrested earlier this year after a Merced County Sheriff Department investigation into Hernendez-Canela’s March 30, 2013 shooting death outside a large house party on Westside Boulevard.

Tellez was accused of being the shooter in the case. Ethan Morse, son of Merced County District Attorney Larry Morse II, at the time was considered a co-defendant in the case.

The homicide charges against Tellez and Morse were both dismissed after Judge Ronald Hansen determined during a Nov. 14 preliminary hearing that the prosecution did not prove its case.

During the same hearing, however, Hansen determined Tellez would still be held to answer on charges of being a minor in possession of a concealed firearm and street gang participation.

Adam Stewart, one of Tellez’s attorneys, confirmed the remaining charges against his client were dropped Tuesday after the prosecution filed a motion to dismiss. The attorney general’s office could not be reached for comment Tuesday evening.

Tellez was released from the Merced County jail later Tuesday, after the charges were formally dismissed by visiting Judge Donald Shaver.

Stewart called the prosecution’s decision to dismiss the charges “further evidence the case was investigated without good cause, brought without merit and prosecuted without merit.”

Merced County Sheriff Vern Warnke said he could not comment on the rationale used by the prosecution to dismiss the charges against Tellez, saying that information would have to come from the attorney general’s office.

“The charges were originally filed through the attorney general’s office, so their decision to do so was based on whatever evidence they had at the time,” the sheriff said.

When asked whether he stands behind the Sheriff’s Department’s investigation of the case, Warnke replied, “Absolutely.”

“They did everything they felt was necessary and they presented it to the attorney general’s office, and the attorney general’s office made the ultimate determination,” Warnke said. “It happens on a regular basis. Our detectives are very good at what they do, and I stand behind everything that they do.”

During last month’s preliminary hearing, Hansen determined the case’s prosecutor did not present enough evidence to show that Tellez fired a gun from Morse’s vehicle.

The judge also took the unusual step of making a formal factual finding that Tellez “did not fire a gun from the Morse vehicle on Westside Boulevard on the evening of March 30, 2013.”

Samantha Parreira, 16, and Matthew Fisher, 19, also died at the party in the 9200 block of Westside Boulevard. Jose L. Botello and Jose M. Carballido, both 19-year-old Atwater residents, are accused of killing Parreira and Fisher at the party.

Fisher and Parreira were shot in the backyard of the home and Hernandez-Canela was shot a short distance down the road from the home.

Botello and Carballido remain in custody at the Merced County jail.

This story was originally published December 30, 2014 at 9:37 PM with the headline "Remaining charges dropped against Tellez."