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The defense for the man accused of a 2009 fatal shooting will begin Monday.
Johan Pujols arrives at the Luzerne County Courthouse for the beginning of his trial on homicide charges. Pujols is accused in the 2009 fatal shooting of Yuery Manuel Colon outside a Hazleton club. The prosecution completed its case on Friday. On Monday, Pujols’ defense will make its case.
Clark Van Orden/The Times Leader
WILKES-BARRE – Defense attorney Joseph Sklarosky Sr. asked Luzerne County Detective Daniel Yursha if investigators “rushed to judgment” in the case against his client.
They rushed to charge Johan Pujols with homicide when facts were not brought to light, Sklarosky said Friday.
Such facts, he said, included a footprint found near where Yuery Manuel Colon was shot and another near where investigators allege Pujols fired a gun on Aug. 1, 2009, outside Club 570 in Hazleton.
“Absolutely not,” the detective said on the fourth day of testimony in Pujols’ trial at the county courthouse. “We had enough evidence … and probable cause (to charge Pujols).”
Prosecutors completed calling witnesses late Friday afternoon.
Judge Tina Polachek Gartley said defense attorneys will begin presenting evidence Monday morning.
Yursha, the last to testify, said the footprints found, which were Nike Air Force 1 sneakers, were not identified as belonging to any specific person, nor was it determined the print was made the night of the shooting.
Yursha testified he believed that when Rafael Calderon Brito grabbed Pujols’ arm after he fired a shot at Colon, that the gun shot Pujols in his arm, blowing a wrist watch Pujols wore on his left arm off.
Sklarosky said the watch, found in three pieces on the roadway, was broken in a scuffle that Pujols had with several men before defending himself by firing his .380-caliber handgun, which he had a license to carry.
Pujols had no other marks on him indicative to a fight, Yursha testified, other than an abrasion on his left forehead, which Yursha said Pujols may have received when he was tackled to the ground by Brito.
“Maybe, because he had a weapon, he was keeping the wolves at bay,” Sklarosky said.
Sklarosky also asked Yursha why prosecutors did not present testimony of the bar manager who worked that night, who allegedly said he heard Luis Perez Rodriguez tell a bar bouncer to get away from him.
“It’s like when you turn a light on and all the beetles scatter,” Yursha said. “It’s difficult because people take off … No one wants to be involved.”
During Yursha’s testimony, TV news reports of when Pujols was arraigned on two counts of aggravated assault injuring Rodriguez, was shown where Pujols tells reporters he was protecting himself from three men.
“I was just trying to defend myself,” Pujols said in the video.
Among the last witnesses to be called to testify Friday was forensic pathologist Mary Pascucci, who testified regarding an autopsy she performed on Colon.
Though the bullet wound Colon received was small, Pascucci said, the blood that pooled in Colon’s abdomen was a “copious” and “large” amount.
The bleeding, Pascucci said, came from the bullet hitting Colon’s aorta – the largest artery in the body – and ending up lodged in his spinal column.
Several autopsy photos were shown to the jury of nine men and three women Friday, who were instructed not to let their emotions get the best of them when they observe the photos.
Members of Colon’s family left the courtroom before the photos were shown.
Pascucci classified Colon’s gunshot wound, which entered his body just above his navel, as a “distance gunshot wound” that would have been fired from two feet or more at Colon.
Luzerne County Coroner John Corcoran also testified that Colon’s cause of death was a gunshot wound to the abdomen, and the manner of death was a homicide.
Two forensic scientists also testified Friday morning, who said they tested clothing belonging to Colon, Pujols and Rodriguez.
Several different stains on the clothing, they said, were matched with DNA samples taken from Rodriguez, Pujols, Brito and Pujols’ cousin, Edwin Leon.
Lisa Shutkufski, who works at a state police crime lab in Bethlehem, testified that DNA belonging to Pujols and Leon was found on Colon’s shirt, and that stains on Rodriguez’s clothing belonged to Rodriguez.