A Manor man facing a capital murder charge in the shooting deaths of two stepbrothers outside a Travis County strip club in 2010 has been sentenced to almost 20 years in federal prison in a separate drug case.
Jorge Gutierrez, 30, (pictured) had been a target of a multi-state drug trafficking investigation when he was arrested on May 31,2010, following the fatal shootings of Jose Hernandez, 24, and Arturo Rodriguez Jr., 26, outside the Pink Monkey Cabaret, a strip club in eastern Travis County.
Relatives of the victims have said that a dispute over a stolen iPhone led to a fistfight and, ultimately, to the shooting.
Witnesses to the shooting said the gunman fled the club parking lot in a Ford F-250 pickup, which deputies later pulled over with Gutierrez inside, an arrest affidavit said. Witnesses identified Gutierrez as the shooter and he was arrested, the affidavit said.
Gutierrez was indicted in federal court in Alexandria, Va., three days after the shooting. In November he pleaded guilty to conspiracy to distribute cocaine and was sentenced last week to 235 months in prison. He is among 15 people sentenced to federal prison time in the case.
Federal prosecutors said Gutierrez led the ring that brought large quantities of cocaine from Mexico to his home in Manor and then had co-conspirators deliver the cocaine in vehicles to Arkansas, Virginia and Pennsylvania. During six months of 2009 and 2010 the group smuggled about 60 kilograms to Virginia alone, prosecutors said in a news release.
Officials have not alleged a link between the drug trafficking and murder cases. Gutierrez is scheduled for a pretrial hearing on his Travis County capital murder indictment on March 19. No trial date has been set.