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Witness intimidation alleged after Cambridge slaying

E-mail|Link June 18, 2009 01:00 PM

By Brian R. Ballou and Andrew Ryan, Globe Staff

A man accused of intimidating a witness who spoke to police about a killing earlier this week in Cambridge erupted in a tirade of obscenities today when a judge ordered him held on $20,000 cash bail.

The man, Edwin Alvarado, 22, screamed at the judge in Cambridge District Court after his arraignment on charges of witness intimidation and assault and battery.

Prosecutors allege that Alvarado slapped the witness twice in the face and told him to stop talking to police about a shooting early Tuesday that left a man lying dead in a driveway of the Fresh Pond Apartments.

Defense attorney Raymond L. Parino dismissed the charges as a coercive attempt to get Alvarado to cooperate with homicide investigators. Alvarado has an alibi, he said, for the time of the alleged witness assault.

"This has nothing to do with witness intimidation and battery," Parino said. "This has everything to do with the investigation of the homicide."

Police did not release the name of the witness, who came forward with information about the fatal shooting of Jason V. Ellcock, 33. Police responded to gunfire at about 3 a.m. on Tuesday and found Ellcock's body in the driveway of the Fresh Pond Apartments, one of the towering red brick buildings that dominate the skyline along Fresh Pond Parkway. No one has been charged with the shooting, which followed a wave of violence in the neighborhood.

Police arrested Alvarado and three other people on disorderly conduct charges the morning of the shooting. When Alvarado was released from jail without bond, he allegedly tracked down the witness who spoke with police about the killing.

Alvarado is accused of calling the witness and asking to meet him outside a home on Rindge Avenue. When the witness arrived there at 4 p.m. on Wednesday, Alvarado allegedly slapped him twice in the face and threatened him about talking to police.

The witness called authorities at 4:15 p.m. and three hours later police arrested Alvarado.

"We allege that this defendant beat and threatened a witness to prevent him from cooperating with our ongoing homicide investigation," Middlesex District Attorney Gerald T. Leone Jr. said in the press release. "We will prosecute any person who interferes with this investigation by threatening witnesses or being untruthful in their statements to police."