A 27-year-old man was convicted Wednesday of felony voluntary manslaughter in the 2018 death of an Allentown man.

Anderson Jorge Cruz, no known address, was convicted in the killing of 24-year-old Juan Alfredo Sanchez Jr. following a three-day jury trial at the Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas.

Cruz’s bail is denied while he awaits sentencing on March 11.

Cruz faces a possible sentence of up to 20 years in prison, the Lehigh County District Attorney’s Office said.

Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan announced the conviction Thursday morning. Paul J. Levy, the public defender assigned to Cruz, couldn’t immediately be reached for comment.

Prosecutors said Sanchez was shot on April 26, 2018 at 315 Linden St., the apartment complex off American Parkway in Allentown. Investigators found Sanchez with gunshot wounds to his upper torso.

Sanchez was taken to Lehigh Valley Hospital-Cedar Crest in Salisbury Township, where he was pronounced dead at 11:08 p.m. that same day. The death was ruled a homicide by Lehigh County Coroner Daniel A. Buglio.

The investigation revealed both Cruz and Sanchez were in a car and got into an argument that escalated into a fight. During the altercation, Cruz pulled a handgun from under the seat and shot the victim twice before driving away at a high rate of speed.

Cruz later gave away the weapon used in the killing, sold his car and fled to Massachusetts. Two months after his arrival in Massachusetts, Cruz committed a separate homicide in that state.

Cruz was then arrested in January 2019 by federal authorities in a heroin and fentanyl trafficking investigation in Lowell, Mass. He pleaded guilty to charges in both the federal drug investigation and the Massachusetts homicide and was eventually extradited back to Pennsylvania in 2024 on the homicide case.

The Lehigh County case was investigated by Allentown Police Detective Stephen Fiorillo and Lehigh County Homicide Task Force Detective Kevin Mriss. It was prosecuted by Lehigh County Chief Deputy District Attorney Sarah A. Moyer and Lehigh County Senior Deputy District Attorney Ashley N. Troxell.