10 years later, man sentenced to prison for role in teen's shooting death over thrown egg
by Emily Ashcraft ksl · KSL.comKEY TAKEAWAYS
- Martin Antonio Cruz was sentenced to one to 15 years in prison for manslaughter.
- Attorneys said Cruz was driving while another man fired an AK-47, killing teenager Paris Gustin over an egging dispute 10 years ago.
- Family members of Gustin talked at the sentencing about how his loss has impacted the last decade of their lives.
SALT LAKE CITY — It has been over a decade since Ashley Gustin started seeking justice for her son, who was killed at 16 years old. On Monday, she finally got to stand up in a courtroom at the sentencing for one of the men responsible for her son being "brutally murdered" over an egging.
"I don't even know if there's words to describe what he has done to me and my son. He not only killed Paris that day — he killed me and everything that I was, everything that I loved in life," she said.
Gustin said she felt in her heart that morning, July 5, 2016, that her son was gone. She knew something was wrong.
The mother spoke alongside other family members at the sentencing for Martin Antonio Cruz, and noted that she did not see any emotion or remorse on his face.
Third District Judge Elizabeth Hruby-Mills sentenced Cruz, now 31, to one to 15 years in prison for manslaughter, a second-degree felony, and gave him credit for the more than nine years he already spent in jail since he was charged.
Charging documents claimed that Cruz and Fortunato Nato Villagrana used an AK-47 to shoot and kill the boy. Charges said Paris Gustin was inside a Honda Civic with two other teenagers who were driving around and "egging" people and other vehicles in the Fairpark neighborhood near 600 North and 1100 West, and one went through an open window, hitting Villagrana in the ear.
Villagrana drove home to get an AK-47 and went to look for the boys, later finding the Nissan and firing several shots at it from about a foot away, charges allege. Cruz, attorneys said, was driving the car.
Before the sentence was handed down, Ashley Gustin said evidence shows that her son might not have been the one who threw the egg, telling Cruz that he and Villagrana may have killed the wrong person.
"The reason that (Cruz) has been incarcerated so long is because he had to be caught... He told on his friend to get a lesser sentence. It wasn't to help the court or this case," she said.
The mom said it would have taken "one simple 'no'" from Cruz to save her son, but instead he chose to go along with his friend.
"Paris was a human being and one of the best human beings this world will ever get to know," she told the judge.
A decade of grief
Michael Begay, Paris Gustin's dad, asked the judge to consider in her decision that his son is never coming back.
"I miss my son. There's nothing, there's no words, there's nothing that I could really say to express how I feel," he said.
Begay said he's been in the position of the defendant in the courtroom and knows what he is experiencing, but he also noted he did not hear or see any remorse from Cruz. He said he hopes Cruz does something positive with the rest of his life.
"Everybody's grieving, everybody wishes that they can go back and take this day back and just grab our son and stick him in his room," the father said.
Shante McArthur, Paris Gustin's aunt, said every year on July 4th, the family has a huge gathering, and Paris Gustin was there in 2016 before he went out to meet friends. That was the last time the family saw him.
"I think if any of us had the chance to know that we would never see him again, all of us would have just taken a little more time with him, a lot more time with him, hugged him a little tighter, told him we loved him, but none of us dreamed that that was going to happen, ever," she said.
McArthur said it is hard for her to know that the men who chased him had an hour to think about it and realize they should stop, but they didn't.
After the killing, she said her daughters started a long battle with mental health struggles and she watched her sister "crumble into pieces." She says her family will carry the loss throughout their lives.
"Paris was so much more than the way he died. He was an amazing young man. He had the most incredible smile — it literally lit up a room when he walked in. He was warm, genuine and unforgettable," McArthur said.
She said he was not violent, but made a mistake a child would make.
"He didn't deserve to be hunted down. He didn't deserve to die over something so trivial. He didn't deserve to have his life ended in a matter of seconds while he was running in fear," McArthur told the filled courtroom.
Guilty plea
The preliminary hearing for Cruz was held in November 2017, and he waived his rights to a speedy trial in 2018 after requesting a hearing be delayed. His attorney said the case's significant delay was not Cruz's fault.
He pleaded guilty on Aug. 3, admitting to recklessly causing Gustin's death. Cruz was offered a plea deal that reduced his main charge from murder to manslaughter and dismissed three counts of discharging a firearm — one first-degree felony and two third-degree felonies.
Deputy Salt Lake County Attorney Brad Cooley said the plea deal offered did not reflect Cruz's involvement in the crime or the loss the family experienced, but instead the need for his cooperation in order to get Villagrana back from the country he fled to.
Samuel Hanseen, the attorney for Cruz, said that he has already been in jail for nine and a half years and encouraged the judge to sentence him only for the time he has served. He said Cruz will be deported when the case is over, and it is in the interest of justice to release him from jail.
"He didn't want to be involved, but he didn't have it in him to stand up to his co-defendant," Hanseen said.
The attorney said Cruz takes full accountability and wishes he had made a different decision. Hanseen noted that Cruz was willing to cooperate and testify against his co-defendant in a preliminary hearing in July.
Cruz said he did not want to make any comments.
Villagrana is scheduled for a jury trial early next year.
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The Key Takeaways for this article were generated with the assistance of large language models and reviewed by our editorial team. The article, itself, is solely human-written.
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Emily Ashcraft
Emily Ashcraft is a reporter for KSL. She covers issues in state courts, health and religion. In her spare time, Emily enjoys crafting, cycling and raising chickens.