{"id":87094,"date":"2026-01-15T02:31:10","date_gmt":"2026-01-15T02:31:10","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87094\/"},"modified":"2026-01-15T02:31:10","modified_gmt":"2026-01-15T02:31:10","slug":"deadly-allentown-basketball-court-shooting-man-gets-life-in-prison","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/87094\/","title":{"rendered":"Deadly Allentown basketball court shooting: Man gets life in prison"},"content":{"rendered":"

One of the men convicted in a 2024 fatal shooting<\/a> at an Allentown<\/a> basketball court has been sentenced to life behind bars.<\/p>\n

On Tuesday, Lehigh County Court of Common Pleas Judge Thomas M. Caffrey sentenced 29-year-old Grelvis Estevez Cabrera to mandatory life imprisonment, without parole, for the felony criminal homicide charge.<\/p>\n

Estevez Cabrera received an additional nine to 40 years in prison for the felony conspiracy to commit criminal homicide charge and probation for the remaining misdemeanor evidence tampering charge.<\/p>\n

Estevez Cabrera, of the 400 block of West Broad Street in Bethlehem,<\/a> was found guilty after a jury trial in October<\/a> of all charges.<\/p>\n

Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan announced the sentencing Tuesday afternoon. Tonya Helaine Tharp and David D. Ritter, the public defenders representing Estevez Cabrera, couldn\u2019t immediately be reached for comment Wednesday morning.<\/p>\n

Four other co-defendants have been charged in the killing that happened June 1, 2024 at Fountain Park, 924 Martin Luther King Jr. Dr. <\/p>\n

Co-defendants include 20-year-old Carlos Nathaniel Landesta-Agramonte, 24-year-old Alfeni Romero-Taveras, and 24-year-old Joel Arturo Garcia-Paulino, all of Allentown, as well as 23-year-old Wilmer Esquiel MarteTavarez of Lords Valley, Pike County<\/a>.<\/p>\n

Romero-Taveras, Garcia-Paulino and MarteTavarez are all awaiting trial on related homicide charges.<\/p>\n

Landesta-Agramonte pleaded guilty in November to felony charges of murder and conspiracy to commit murder. He was sentenced to serve 20 to 40 years in state prison. <\/p>\n

City officers were called shortly before 6:30 p.m. June 1, 2024 to the park for a reported shots fired.<\/p>\n

They found 25-year-old Angel Martinez-Velez deceased on the basketball court with multiple gunshot wounds,<\/a> according to the affidavit of probable cause. The court record lays out evidence and witness testimony against defendants.<\/p>\n

Martinez-Velez was pronounced dead just after 7:15 p.m. that same day by the Lehigh County Coroner\u2019s Office. He died from the wounds, and the manner of death was ruled a homicide by Lehigh County Coroner Daniel A. Buglio.<\/p>\n

Witnesses described to investigators two vehicles involved in the shooting: a dark Honda Accord and white car, later identified as an Infiniti. They also described the shooter as a man wearing a red jacket, dark pants, a grey shirt, a black facial mask and a fanny pack, court records state.<\/p>\n

Immediately after the shooting and 911 calls, city cameras recorded two vehicles matching the descriptions fleeing Fountain Park and appearing to be traveling together.<\/p>\n

Investigators tracked the vehicles through the city on the camera system and concluded they were traveling together at a high rate of speed east on Union Street, over the Hamilton Street Bridge and into the city\u2019s east side, court records state.<\/p>\n

Investigators were able to identify the license plate of the Honda and observed a front seat passenger wearing a red jacket, which matched the description provided by witnesses. The Infiniti was registered to Landesta-Agramonte, authorities said.<\/p>\n

Investigators obtained a search warrant and two hours after the shooting arrived at Landesta-Agramonte\u2019s East Court Street home. Both vehicles were found and seized two blocks away on North Ellsworth Street, court records state.<\/p>\n

Clothing and a facial mask matching descriptions provided by witnesses of the suspects were found by investigators in both the trunks of the Honda and Infiniti, according to court records.<\/p>\n

Both Landesta-Agramonte and Estevez Cabrera on June 5, 2024 arrived at the Allentown Police Department Criminal Investigations Division and were taken into custody.<\/p>\n

Landesta-Agramonte in an interview with investigators reportedly admitted being at the scene and being a passenger in the Honda, while Esteves Cabrera reportedly admitted to being the Infiniti driver.<\/p>\n

MarteTavarez was arrested in July 2024 and identified by authorities as the alleged gunman. He was nabbed when the continuing investigation focused on evidence that the person identified as the shooter had placed his hand in a specific location on the blue Honda, the Lehigh County District Attorney\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n

Fingerprint evidence obtained from that location on the Honda connected MarteTavarez<\/a> to the homicide, the DA\u2019s Office said.<\/p>\n

The case was investigated by Allentown Police Detective Theodore Kiskeravage and Lehigh County Homicide Task Force Detective Moses Miller. <\/p>\n

All the cases are being prosecuted by Lehigh County Chief Deputy District Attorney Ramma R. Mineo and Lehigh County First Assistant District Attorney Patricia Fuentes Mulqueen.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"One of the men convicted in a 2024 fatal shooting at an Allentown basketball court has been sentenced…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":45082,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[4380,119,121,120,4381,4382,4383,4384,4385,4386,4387,4388,4389,4390,4391,4392,4393],"class_list":["post-87094","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-adultcb2","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-authoritycb2","tag-barriercb2","tag-caucasian-ethnicitycb2","tag-controlcb2","tag-corrections-officercb2","tag-handscb2","tag-jailcb2","tag-justicecb2","tag-lockingcb2","tag-one-personcb1","tag-prison-barscb2","tag-unlockingcb2","tag-view-from-belowcb1"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87094","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=87094"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/87094\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/45082"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=87094"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=87094"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=87094"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}