The Orange-Osceola State Attorney’s Office on Tuesday dropped a murder charge against a suspect who fatally shot a man outside a nightclub south of downtown Orlando earlier this year after admitting they could not prove it wasn’t in self-defense.
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Jean Borja Gil De La Madr, 37, was charged with second-degree murder for the early morning Feb. 22 killing of 33-year-old Julien Cruz, the result of a physical altercation outside Savoy Orlando.
According to the Orlando Police Department, once the argument turned physical, Borja Gil De La Madr went to his car and returned with a gun, shot Cruz and fled the scene only to be found nearby. He turned himself in at the Orange County Jail that same day.
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But the case against Borja Gil De La Madr turned problematic a week later, when an Orange County judge on March 2 issued a $75,000 bond for his release. In court, his lawyers argued there was “significant evidence of self-defense,” and the judge ruled prosecutors did not make a convincing case to keep him behind bars.
On Tuesday, the State Attorney’s Office issued a notice that the case was being dropped, citing that it could not prove the “use of force was not justified beyond a reasonable doubt.”
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