Ismael Ortiz decides to continue with bench trial
Richard Byrd/Columbia Basin Herald Murder suspect Ismael Ortiz appears in Grant County Superior Court on Wednesday.
EPHRATA — The prime suspect in the 2016 death of an elderly man outside of a Moses Lake bar has decided he will stick to his decision to have a bench trial. The trial date has been pushed out to next week.
Ismael Ortiz Jr., of Moses Lake, is currently charged in Grant County Superior Court with first-degree murder and first-degree unlawful possession of a firearm in connection with the June 2016 death of 68-year-old Robert Cook.
Ortiz previously decided to have a bench trial, as opposed to a jury trial, and the case was set to be heard before Judge John Knodell on Wednesday. Ortiz and his defense attorney asked for time to reconsider the bench trial decision after a material witness in the case came forth with new information that is reportedly different from the story he initially gave police investigators.
The witness reportedly told the prosecution that in the moments after the shooting outside of Neppel’s Dockside Pub, which has since been renamed Midway Pub, he witnessed two men, believed by the prosecution to be Ortiz and his co-defendant Jose Rodriguez, run from the area of the bar. The new detail the witness gave relates to Ortiz and Rodriguez allegedly coming into contact with a black SUV in an alley.
The new detail is significant because the prosecution says Rodriguez’s girlfriend drove a black SUV to the pub the night of the shooting and video surveillance taken near the pub allegedly shows a black SUV leave the area of the shooting. The witness gave the new account on Wednesday morning and the information came as news to Ortiz and his defense attorney, Michael Morgan. Knodell gave Ortiz until yesterday morning to decide if he wished to continue with the bench trial.
On Thursday Morgan informed the court his client wishes to go the bench trial route, but he requested a recess until Monday to better prepare his case and to do some follow-up investigation in light of the material witness’ account.
Prosecutors were in opposition to the request for a recess, as the state was under the assumption that the case was going to proceed two days ago and rescheduling all of their witnesses would be quite the undertaking. Knodell pushed the trial out to Dec. 13, with the expectation of another continuance to be granted at that time if the state can’t coordinate the schedules of its witnesses.
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