David Taber
Two people were arrested in the past two weeks and arraigned in Roxbury district court on charges of murder for the May 8 slaying of 14-year-old Jaewon Martin at a basketball court in Jackson Square.
Timothy Hearns, 20, of Dorchester, was arraigned July 30, the same day he was arrested, and appeared in court again on Aug. 6. Ramon Silvelo-Miles, 20, of Lynn, was arrested Aug. 6 and arraigned Aug. 9. Both defendants were charged with murder, assault and battery with a dangerous weapon and carrying a loaded firearm, according to press releases from the Suffolk County District Attorney Dan Conley’s office. Both pleaded not guilty and are being held without bail. No trial date has been set.
In a telephone interview, Hearn’s lawyer, Daniel Beck, told the Gazette he filed a motion to dismiss charges against Hearns at a court appearance on Aug. 6, because, he said, prosecutors had not presented any evidence to support the charges, or to justify holding Hearns without bail. That motion was denied, Beck said.
The shooting, which also left a 15-year-old male wounded, was allegedly a case of mistaken identity in an ongoing feud between the Bromley-Heath-based Heath Street and the Roxbury-based H-Block gangs, Suffolk County DA’s Office spokesperson Erika Gully-Santiago told the Gazette.
Bromley-Heath abuts the Southwest Corridor basketball court where the victims were shot.
Hearns, who is the alleged gunman, Silvelo-Miles and others traveled to Bromley-Heath on May 8 “for the purpose of shooting someone in the Heath Street gang,” Assistant District Attorney Edward Krippendorf said at Silvelo-Miles’s Aug. 9 arraignment, according to a Suffolk DA’s Office press release.
Members of the Heath Street Gang “are known to socialize” at the basketball court, the press release says. But Martin, “An eighth grade honor roll student at the Timilty Middle School [in Roxbury]…[was] not a member of the Heath Street gang,” Krippendorf told the court.
Silvelo-Miles owns one of the two cars the alleged gang members traveled to the area in, according to the press release.
Evidence against Silvelo-Miles includes statements he allegedly made, surveillance camera footage that showed his car in the area and cell phone records, according to the press release.
Shortly after Hearns’s initial indictment, Beck told the Gazette in a phone interview, “I have no idea what evidence there is linking Mr. Hearns with the shooting.”
At the second court date, prosecutors submitted a new complaint that included information that, “Hearns admitted his involvement to some unidentified person,” Beck said. “By that logic, I could say you committed a crime and you told me and as long as that crime happened, you can be held without bail indefinitely,” Beck said.
Beck said he presented the Suffolk County DA’s Office with a copy of the novel “The Trial,” by Franz Kafka at the Aug. 6 hearing. That story is a surreal tale about a man who is put on trial on charges that are never made clear to him. “He took it very well,” Beck said of Assistant DA Krippendorf.
When asked about Beck’s concerns, Suffolk DA’s Office spokesperson Jake Wark told the Gazette Beck was being provided with information about the case against Hearns through the discovery process. Early this week Beck said that information has not yet been provided to him.
Silvelo-Miles’s lawyer, John Galvin, declined to comment when contacted by the Gazette.