Alleged killer outside after-hours club is held for trial

A WITNESS in the preliminary hearing of slaying suspect Leonaldo Rivera testified yesterday that he saw the defendant shoot at an SUV outside a Feltonville after-hours club in January.

The vehicle tried to speed away but "stayed there, sliding" on the icy street, said Antonio Vicenty, 32. "The tires spun [but] he wasn't going anywhere."

The "he" behind the wheel of the silver Chevy TrailBlazer was Alexander Rojas-Garcia, 24, who was fatally wounded outside the A Lounge Social Club, on Macalester Street near Hunting Park Avenue. The Temple University student and budding entrepreneur was struck in the face and torso as he sat in the passenger's seat. Rojas-Garcia was pronounced dead at the scene.

Also injured in the SUV was Rojas-Garcia's friend Christian Ramos, Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega said.

Municipal Judge Teresa Carr Deni held Rivera, 25, of Camden, for trial on murder, attempted-murder and gun charges. His next hearing is scheduled for May 5.

Vicenty and his long-term partner, Valery Diaz, were the only witnesses who testified at the hearing. Diaz, through a Spanish interpreter, testified that the couple had moved out of Philadelphia for their own safety a few days after providing information to police.

Vicenty said he left the area immediately after the shooting and headed to a nearby car, where Diaz and two friends were inside. He jumped into the back seat and told them, "He killed him."

Vicenty testified that Rivera later dropped by the couple's North Philadelphia home to pick up one of their friends, whom Diaz later identified as Jessania Moreno.

Vicenty asked Rivera, "What happened?" Vicenty testified.

Rivera gave him a "cold look," Vicenty recalled. "I didn't touch the subject after that."

Diaz, who has known Rivera since they were children in Puerto Rico, testified that Rivera admitted to the shooting the following day inside her house. "He had a smile like making fun," she said.

Diaz and Vicenty both said they saw themselves in a video broadcast by Telemundo a few weeks after Rojas-Garcia was killed. The next day, they went to police in the 25th District and were taken to the Homicide Unit and interviewed separately.

Rivera's defense attorney, Robert Patrick Link, challenged the witnesses during testimony, and after the hearing called them "polluted sources."

The dead man's father, Wilfredo Rojas, a board member of the Gloucester County NAACP - who yesterday in court wore a button with his son's picture and the words "Justice for Alex" - said he "commended the witnesses for being courageous."