UPDATE, AUG. 5, 10:19 A.M.: As expected, amended charges have been filed against 24-year-old Oscar Raul Medina-Perez in the death of Leovardo Vera
Bustos, who died from brain injuries two weeks after taking a single punch in front of La Barca Night Club in Stanton on July 5.
However, a murder count is not among the new charges, so Bustos has been removed from Orange County's 2011 roster of homicide victims.
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According to the Orange County District Attorney's office, Medina-Perez will be arraigned in Santa Ana today on an amended complaint charging the Huntington Beach resident with one felony count of involuntary
manslaughter and one felony count of battery with serious injury.
If
convicted, he faces up to eight years in state prison.
His bond in the Bustos case is $25,000, but he remains locked up due to a no-bail Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold.
UPDATE, JULY 26, 7:44 A.M.: 24-year-old Westminster resident Leovardo Vera
Bustos has died from the brain injuries suffered after sustaining a single punch in front of La Barca NIght Club in Stanton on July 5.
Bustos
fell backward, hit the ground hard, lost consciousness and never
regained it. Weeks after surgery to reduce swelling to his brain, Bustos
was taken off life support late Friday night.
Due to the man's death, the Orange County Sheriff's Department intends to file for stepped-up charges against suspected puncher Oscar Raul Medina-Perez.
The Huntington Beach 24-year-old is already being held without bail because of an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold.
UPDATE, JULY 15, 10 A.M.: Huntington Beach 24-year-old Oscar Raul Medina-Perez
is due in court today to face charges where one punch in the face could
cost him four years in state prison followed by deportation.
Medina-Perez is accused of having struck another 24-year-old, Leovardo Vera
Bustos, so hard the night of July 5, the Westminster man fell to the
ground in front of La Barca NIght Club in Stanton, lost consciousness
and has never regained it.
Bustos was taken home unconscious. He
was later found in his bed unresponsive with blood
coming from his nose. He was then taken to UCI Medical Center in Orange,
where he is on life support and listed in grave condition.
An
Orange County District Attorney's office (OCDA) arraignment statement
filled in more details about what authorities say happened at La Barca.
Bustos was with his cousin when he got in an argument with Medina-Perez
in front of the nightclub. The verbal exchange grew so heated that a
security guard had to get between them. That's when Medina-Perez is
accused of punching Bustos in the face.
The OCDA charged Medina-Perez Thursday with one felony count of battery with serious injury. Senior Deputy District Attorney Ebrahim Baytieh
of the Homicide Unit is seeking bail of $25,000 bail at today's hearing
in Santa Ana. Medina-Perez will be ineligible to post bail because he's
also in custody on an Immigration and Customs Enforcement hold.
The
statement from prosecutors corrected the age of Bustos and details of
the incident originally reported by responding Orange County sheriff's
deputies.
ORIGINAL POST, JULY 14, 10:36 A.M.: 33 24-year-old Leovardo Vera Bustos had the crap beat out of him
took a punch in the early morning hours of July 5 at La Barca Night
Club in Stanton, and authorities do not expect the Westminster resident
to survive.
Sheriff's investigators say that through witness
interviews, warranted wiretaps and a review of surveillance video shot
at the club at 11221 Beach Blvd., they were able to make an arrest.
Oscar Raul Medina-Perez, 24, was taken into custody at his Huntington Beach workplace and charged with assault causing great bodily injury.
Bustos,
meanwhile, suffered “closed head trauma” and underwent surgery at UCI
Medical Center in Orange in an attempt to reduce and control swelling to
the brain. His condition after surgery was critical, but it has since
been downgraded to grave.
“He is not expected to survive his injuries,” ends an arrest statement from the Orange County Sheriff's Department.
OC Weekly Editor-in-Chief Matt Coker has been engaging, enraging and entertaining readers of newspapers, magazines and websites for decades. He spent the first 13 years of his career in journalism at daily newspapers before “graduating” to OC Weekly in 1995 as the alternative newsweekly’s first calendar editor.