Pictured: Miguel Licona-Ortega. Photo provided by the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
AURORA | A Honduran man who killed another man by shooting him in the back of the head at an Aurora sports bar was sentenced last week to life in prison.
It took the jury in Arapahoe County District Court just about an hour to determine Miguel Angel Licona-Ortega, 24, was guilty of first-degree murder for his role in the killing at Tierra Maya Bar in July 2017.
George Brauchler, district attorney for the 18th judicial district, partially blamed the crime on the country’s flawed immigration system.
“Our criminal justice system does a poor job of tracking how much crime is—or is not—attributable to those who are here illegally,” Brauchler said in a statement. “This murder is in part another product of our failed immigration system … While the vast majority of those here illegally would never commit such wanton acts, we must secure our border from violent criminals.”
Arapahoe District Judge Andrew Baum sentenced Licona-Ortega to life in prison without parole — the mandatory sentence for the crime — after a four-day trial.
Licona-Ortega was in the U.S. illegally, according to the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office.
Investigators determined Licona-Ortega, who was later identified as a local heroin dealer, shot and killed Javier Chacon-Ortega, 23, around 7 p.m. July 29, 2017 in the doorway of the Tierra Maya Bar at 455 Havana St.
The two men had been arguing leading up to the shooting, according to information provided by the 18th Judicial District Attorney’s Office. Chacon-Ortega reportedly challenged Licona-Ortega to a fist fight after the latter made threats to the former’s brother.
Licona-Ortega shot Chacon-Ortega in the back of the head as the two left the watering hole in the city’s Sunny Vale neighborhood. Using a .38 revolver, Licona-Ortega then continued to shoot Chacon-Ortega in the head again while his body lay on the ground.
Chacon-Ortega was later pronounced dead at University Hospital in Aurora.
“This was the coldest, most calculated murderer I have ever prosecuted,” Rebeca Gleason, the chief deputy district attorney who prosecuted the case, said in a statement.
Following the shooting, Licona-Ortega fled the scene in a car he had arranged to pick him up prior to the killing. Police then launched a manhunt searching for the suspected gunman before arresting Licona-Ortega at his home the next morning.
Licona-Ortega had been charged with two counts of felony assault in a separate incident about a month before the shooting, Colorado Bureau of Investigation records show.