Obama to take on fiscal anxiety

Serena Williams on US Fed Cup team; Venus is not

First Posted: 3/29/2012 WILKES-BARRE &amp;ndash; Rodolfo Hiraldo Perez said Thursday he understood he didn&amp;rsquo;t have to testify at his trial on homicide charges. He said he knew it was his right to remain silent before he swore to tell the truth. &amp;ldquo;I didn&amp;rsquo;t know what I was doing,&amp;rdquo; Perez, 25, testified in the third day of his trial on homicide charges in the January 2011 death of 21-year-old Vladimir Ruiz. &amp;ldquo;If I had the intent to kill him, I would&amp;rsquo;ve stabbed him more than once. I (had) no intention to assassinate anyone.&amp;rdquo; Attorneys will present closing arguments this morning before a jury is instructed on the law by Judge David Lupas and sent to deliberate Perez&amp;rsquo;s fate. Perez, with the help of an interpreter, testified for about an hour Thursday, telling a jury he had been drinking and doing drugs for a number of hours at his Wyoming Street, Hazleton, residence with friends, including Willis Gonzalez. At one point during the night on Jan. 15, 2011, Angel Sanchez, 21, showed up with a gun that Perez said he put under his mattress. Around 1:24 a.m. Gonzalez got up, went into the bedroom, and then told Perez they had to go to the nearby bar. Perez said he saw Sanchez, who told him to cover him in the fight he was going to have with Ruiz in case someone decided to jump him. A black man punched Gonzalez, Perez said, and the two went across the street when he then heard gunshots. Investigators say that in that altercation Gonzalez shot and killed Juda Hope, 23. Perez said the gunshots scared him, he was under the influence of drugs and alcohol and he didn&amp;rsquo;t know what to do. &amp;ldquo;Then, I stabbed him once &amp;hellip; but I didn&amp;rsquo;t know where,&amp;rdquo; Perez said of the assault on Ruiz. He said he was too intoxicated to remember where he got the knife or to know where he stabbed Ruiz. &amp;ldquo;I didn&amp;rsquo;t know it was that bad. I didn&amp;rsquo;t know what I had done.&amp;rdquo; Ruiz died at the scene from a stab wound to the heart, a forensic pathologist testified Wednesday. Perez fled the area and eventually went to New York City to his mother&amp;rsquo;s home in the Bronx, where he ultimately turned himself in to police about nine days later. Prosecutors called the last of their witnesses Thursday morning -- a Hazleton city detective, Kenneth Zipovsky. He testified Gonzalez has yet not been located to face charges in Hope&amp;rsquo;s death. He said investigators know Gonzalez boarded a plane to the Dominican Republic sometime after the homicide. Sanchez, 21, pleaded guilty earlier this week to a third-degree murder charge relating to Ruiz&amp;rsquo;s death and will be sentenced in May. Prosecutors also called a rebuttal witness Thursday, Hazleton police Detective Christopher Orozco, who also works for the FBI on its gang task force. Orozco said he is familiar with Perez, Sanchez and Gonzalez, and knows them to be members of the Trinitarios gang. He said that to his knowledge he also believed Ruiz was a member of the Bloods gang.

Perez trial in slaying is nearing last phase