Victims testify to being held at gunpoint

Victims of a July armed robbery testified in a Carson City courtroom Friday that they were terrorized at gunpoint by three men.

Suspects Juan Silverio Garcia-Medina, 32, and Alfonso Segura-Ramirez, 19, sat silently in front of Justice of the Peace John Tatro listening to three of the victims' accounts.

Angelica Martinez could not look the men in the eyes as she pointed them out and told a story of one man threatening to take her children if she did not cooperate with a robbery.

"They all had guns," Angelica testified. She said she objected to the men's actions, but "he turned around and pointed a gun at me and my girls.

"He said, 'You either give me the money, or I take the children.'"

The three men are accused of breaking into a home at 413 East Long St. in the early-morning hours of July 31. Inside, three men, two women and three children were sleeping.

"Around 2 a.m. or 3 a.m. we heard someone knocking on the windows and front door," Martinez testified. She was visiting from Los Angeles. "I saw that someone was hitting the window with a gun. You could see that someone was trying to open the bathroom window."

At the end of the hearing, Tatro sent the men to district court to face five felony crimes, including weapons charges. A third suspect, Ramses Martinez-Cedano, 34, was dismissed from Friday's proceeding when his lawyer, Diane Crow, said she could not represent him because of a conflict of interest.

Martinez-Cedano will be brought before Tatro when another attorney is appointed by the public defender's office.

Testimony implicated all three of the suspects. Two of the men reportedly came through a window and let the third man in through the front door. When one house guest - Angelica's husband, Javier - attempted to stop them, he was reportedly hit on the head by Martinez-Cedano with the butt of a pistol.

Javier testified to being struck. "I felt a hit, heard a shot, and that was it," he said. "The next thing I remember is the hospital."

The bullet lodged in the ceiling.

According to police reports, 911 dispatch received three reports of the shot before deputies were able to respond to the scene.

Outside they were reportedly met by Angelica and another woman running outside with the children. In broken English, she told deputies the assailants were still inside.

After yelling for the suspects to come out and getting no response, deputies entered to find two of the men lying on the couches and a third man in the bedroom, testified sheriff's Deputy Ken Kreider.

"We ordered them into a felony kneeling position and systematically searched them," he said. "It turned out the man that was in the center of the floor was unconscious and bleeding from the mouth,"

When the home was searched, Kreider testified, three handguns, $385 cash and jewelry were found under a couch cushion.

All three guns were 9 mm. Forensics workers ran fingerprint testing on the guns Friday morning. Also taken into evidence was jewelry alleged to have been stolen. In Segura-Ramirez's pocket, three rings were reportedly found.

Segura-Ramirez is being represented by Bill Rogers, while Garcia-Medina is being represented by Ben Walker. Walker called for a stay of the hearing so he could appeal a petition for dismissal to the Nevada Supreme Court.

He said Garcia-Medina's right to a 15-day hearing was violated when it was continued last week. He submitted the motion to Tatro, but it was denied. After the hearing, Walker said he would attempt to bring the issue up in front of District Judge Michael Griffin, who has been chosen to hear the case.