A man accused in a killing during the armed robbery of a Tucson raspado shop in January has been sentenced in an unrelated 2013 murder, officials say.
A preliminary hearing is scheduled this month for 23-year-old Hector J. Molina in the killing of 61-year-old Anthony Quintela, who was killed during a robbery at a southside raspado shop, according to officials with the Pima County Attorney's Office.
Molina was sentenced last week to 19 years in prison for a 2013 murder and three separate aggravated assault cases, said Krisanne LoGalbo, a Pima County Superior Court spokeswoman.
In June 2013, 20-year-old Rafael Siquieros-Tapia was found shot to death on East Old Vail Connection Road near South Country Club Road, Arizona Daily Star archives show. Molina was 17 years old at the time of the murder.
At the time, police said Molina and Siquieros-Tapia were βengaged in a drug offense.β
Molina was arrested in connection with Siquieros-Tapia's murder months later. However, the charges were dropped and Molina was freed from custody.
Information from Molinaβs girlfriend eventually restored the charges against Molina, but not before the January 2018 killing of Quintela.
In that case, police have said Molina and an accomplice robbed a cashier before Quintela, a customer at the shop, was shot and killed.
In July, Molina and Ariel Montes-Deoca were already jailed on unrelated charges when they were charged in connection with Quintela's killing.
Last week, Molina was sentenced to 13 years in prison for Siquieros-Tapia's 2013 killing and a concurrent sentence for two unrelated aggravated assault incidents that happened in 2017.
Molina was sentenced an additional six years for a separate assault, in which court records show that he assaulted two men on Christmas Day in 2017.
