Video: Tremaine Green guilty in killing of teen
Marilyn Acosta has a hard time getting her 4-year-old son to the barbershop. That's something he always did with his uncle, Elvin Cruz.
"Elvin was like a father figure to him," said Acosta of her son, Noel, whose name is tattooed across her neck in cursive.
Little Noel hasn't been the same since Elvin was gunned down a few blocks from home. No one in the family has.
For Elvin's family, the notion of closure - and even justice - is elusive. Acosta and her mother, Maria Alvarado, sat quietly in the back of an Ontario County courtroom Wednesday to watch Elvin's killer receive his punishment: Tremaine Green was sentenced to spend the next 23 years to life in state prison.
"In a way, I was satisfied," Acosta said. "In a way, I was not. Nothing they could give him could repair what has been done."
For Green's parents, the sentence was an injustice.
"He didn't do it!" shouted his mom, Pamela Moore just after leaving the courtroom.
Of the judge and perhaps the whole justice system, her husband, Moses said, "They only do what they want to do - so that's it."
Green's sentence was two years shy of the maximum, 25 to life. His attorney, Michael Roulan, had asked Judge William Kocher for 15 to 25 years.
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<param name="allowFullScreen" value="true" />width="425" height="344" src="http://www.youtube.com/v/TI8p9jsGXhohl=enfs=1" type="application/x-shockwave-flash" allowfullscreen="true"></embed></object> During the six-day trial in late April, Roulan portrayed Green as a standout football player at Geneva High School who had overcome obstacles in his personal life and was excited about starting college in the fall. His portrayal didn't change at the sentencing: "Admittedly," Roulan said, Green "came from a very bad background in life. What he did do was accomplish big things and try to get better year after year after year." Roulan told the judge his client "made a mistake" by getting a gun before Elvin was killed. But he continued to assert that his client was not the shooter, that he "had no intent." "This trouble came to him," he said. A vastly different portrait of Green was offered by the prosecution Wednesday. In fact, First Assistant District Attorney Brian Dennis offered more about Green's criminal past - brushes with the law dating back to when he was 10 - than had ever been presented in court, even at the trial. In making the case for the maximum sentence, Dennis told the judge that Green has a hefty juvenile record in Florida, where he lived until he was about 14. He was involved in car thefts, home burglaries, among other crimes, and remains wanted for unanswered charges, Dennis said, adding that Green also has a 2-year-old in Florida "he does not take responsibility for." What's more, according to Dennis, is that Green has a long history of "fighting Hispanics" at school and on the streets. And he had been reprimanded 24 times for harassment, obscenities and other infractions in his four years at Geneva High School, Dennis said. Dennis didn't want to speculate on Green's motive in killing Elvin. During the trial he suggested that shots were fired near the Finger Lakes Times newspaper building earlier in the night - possibly by acquaintances of Elvin - and Green reacted by getting his assault rifle, returning to Genesee Street and firing at Elvin and his friends. Among the prosecution's key witnesses were young women who said they were with Green when he got the rifle, jumped out of a Jeep and fired. "Elvin Cruz did not deserve to die - he did nothing wrong," Dennis told Kocher, adding, "No matter how many years you give Tremaine Green today, he will be released from prison someday." Elvin will never be brought back, he reminded the judge. But no reminders were needed. When it was his turn to talk, Kocher told Green, "Sir, you did a horrific thing - you've got to be held accountable." Elvin's sister, Acosta, has sympathized with Green's family - and maybe, in small corner of her heart, with Green himself. "He ruined his whole life, too," she said outside the courtroom, fighting back tears. "I don't hate people - there's a God to take care of that." Acosta is expecting to give birth to a baby girl in just a few weeks, around the year anniversary of her brother's murder. She plans to name her Elvina is his honor. "A lot of people say people deserve a second chance in life," she said, "but honestly, I think (Green) had that second chance when he grabbed that gun. He could have chose to leave it where it was and not did what he did." <em>Contact Jessica Pierce at (585) 394-0770, Ext. 250, or at jpierce@messengerpostmedia.com.