NORTHAMPTON — A 20-year-old Northampton man was arraigned Friday in Hampshire Superior Court on a perjury charge related to the March 10 killing of city resident Daniel Cruz.
Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Suhl alleged in court that Joshua Ealy was wearing a GPS monitoring device, related to a case in another court, when he was at the site of Cruz’s death following the killing of Cruz. She also alleges that on May 22, Ealy lied to a grand jury about his whereabouts on March 10 and about not having knowledge of Cruz’s death.
Prosecutors allege that on March 10, Cruz, 44, of Northampton, got into an altercation with Pedro Soto-Rodriguez, 21, also of Northampton, at Meadowbrook Apartments and that Nerkin Omar Morales, 22, of Northampton, intervened with a firearm, shooting Cruz three times and killing him. They also allege that Morales and Soto-Rodriguez enlisted people to help cover up the crime, and that later that evening Cruz’s body was taken to Hatfield, where it was set aflame in a field.
Ealy’s court-appointed attorney, David Mintz, entered a not guilty plea on Ealy’s behalf in court Friday. Bail was set at $5,000 cash without prejudice following substantial arguments from both the prosecution and defense. Ealy has been in custody since May.
In asking for the $5,000 cash bail Suhl alleged that Ealy is a close friend of Morales. She also said that Ealy is facing charges in two other cases, one in Hampden Superior Court related to an alleged armed robbery and another in Hampshire Superior Court related to alleged drug dealing from his former home, a case in which Morales is also a defendant.
Suhl acknowledged that the question of Ealy’s competence has come up in the Hampden County case, and that on his third evaluation, which took place at the Lemuel Shattuck Hospital, he was found incompetent, although a hearing on that matter is set to take place later this month. Mintz said that Ealy had been found incompetent twice before in Hampshire/Franklin Juvenile Court in 2016, and that the prosecution knew this when they questioned him before the grand jury.
Suhl said that Ealy’s mother has moved to Louisiana and that he has no stable place to stay at the moment. She said that combined with the seriousness of the perjury charge, Ealy had an incentive to flee. As for GPS monitoring as a condition, which the commonwealth requested among its bail conditions, Suhl said, “people cut off GPS bracelets all the time.”
Mintz said that when Ealy was 8 or 9 he went into a coma related to encephalitis or meningitis and when he came out of it he had “pronounced cognitive deficits.”
“These issues have persisted,” Mintz said.
Mintz asked that Ealy’s bail be set at a nominal amount with the conditions asked for by the prosecution, noting that Ealy has been unable to come up with $1,500 cash bail on the drug charges.
Mintz shared with the court that he has been in regular contact with Ealy’s mother, and that while she moved to Louisiana to take care of her ill father and because she was afraid an abusive family member had followed her to Massachusetts, she still cares about her son.
Judge John Agostini expressed some concern with how Ealy’s testimony was handled before the grand jury. However, he also expressed concern with granting a nominal bail that would see Ealy released and living with a friend, expressing a fear that this would be “condemning him to more problems,” because he has had repeated run-ins with the law that may be related to cognitive issues.
“He needs far more than that,” Agostini said.
Bera Dunau can be reached at bdunau@gazettenet.com.