Court holds ‘status check’ before scheduling preliminary
hearing
Morgan Hill – Today’s court date for Anthony J. Frausto, 18, of Morgan Hill is simply a “status check” to determine if the District Attorney’s office and Frausto’s defense attorney are ready to proceed with a preliminary hearing.
Frausto is being held without bail in Santa Clara County Jail for the shooting death of Luis Bautista, 19, of Gilroy.
“It’s an opportunity for us to see where we are in the process,” Deputy District Attorney Stuart Scott said Monday. “In a case like this, particularly, a homicide, where there’s a lot of discovery, it takes time to get through everything, and we’re not there yet.”
Likely another date will be set during this afternoon’s appearance, Scott said, then at that court date, the preliminary hearing would likely be scheduled. The preliminary hearing is used for the presiding judge to determine if there is enough evidence to proceed with a trial.
Santa County Superior Court Judge Kenneth Shapero is the presiding judge in this case.
Bautista was shot four times Sept. 30 behind the Safeway grocery store in Tennant Station shopping center. Witnesses described seeing him running as four or five men in their late teens or early 20s chased him. After he was shot, the men fled, and a witness drove Bautista to Saint Louise Medical Center. He was flown to Regional Medical Center in San Jose, where he later died.
Frausto was arrested less than 24 hours later, after he went to the police station to “clear his name” once he heard officers were trying to contact him.
Morgan Hill Police have characterized the shooting as gang related, as Frausto identifies with the Norteño gang, and Bautista, who moved to Gilroy from Mexico less than a year before he died, was a Sureño, police said.
