Three people who stood trial and were convicted for their roles in the fatal shooting of a Plainfield man in his home a little more than five years ago have been sentenced to a combined total of 140 years in state prison, acting Union County Prosecutor Michael A. Monahan announced Friday.
Officials say Alejandro Lopez, 30, Mayrenid Hidalgo-Bautista, 31, and Rodney Rosario, 33, were sentenced Friday morning by state Superior Court Judge John M. Deitch. Rosario received a term of 64 years, Lopez 59 years, and Hidago-Bautista 17 years, with the vast majority of the aggregate jail time to be subject to New Jersey’s No Early Release Act, meaning 85 percent of it will have to be served before the possibility of parole.
According to authorities, on Sunday, November 24, 2013, Plainfield Police Division patrol units were called to the 700 block of East Sixth Street on a report of a shooting and found the body of 28-year-old Jose Disla-Cordero in the basement of his home, according to Union County Assistant Prosecutors Jillian Reyes and Milton Leibowitz, who prosecuted the case. Disla-Cordero had sustained multiple gunshot wounds, and numerous pieces of ballistic evidence were recovered at the scene, Reyes and Leibowitz said.
An investigation by the Union County Homicide Task Force – assisted by the Plainfield Police Division, Perth Amboy Police Department, Union County Sheriff’s Office Crime Scene Unit, Union County Police Department Ballistics Unit, and FBI – resulted in the three defendants being identified as suspects in the case, and they were located and arrested at various points during the ensuing two years.
A fourth suspect was also identified, and prior to trial he pleaded guilty to a charge of conspiracy to commit murder. During the trial of the other three, it was revealed that, believing that the victim had stolen from them, the defendants burst into Disla-Cordero’s home and held two other adults at gunpoint in the basement while using three handguns to shoot the victim to death.
As a result of the October 2018 trial, all three defendants were convicted of conspiracy to commit murder, while Lopez and Rosario both were also convicted on charges of murder, felony murder, burglary, two weapons offenses, and two counts of both criminal restraint and aggravated assault.
In addition to the aforementioned assisting agencies, the Prosecutor’s Office thanks the Union County Sheriff’s Office’s Warrants Unit and authorities in Clay County, Missouri for their aid in retrieving witnesses for the trial.