Joliet man charged in May 7 shooting freed from jail

A Joliet man charged in connection with the shooting another man was released from jail Friday after a judge reduced his bond.

On Friday, Judge Carmen Goodman granted a motion from Jesus Zambrano’s attorney, Chuck Bretz, to lower his client’s bond. Zambrano’s bond was initially set at $500,000, and Goodman set his new bond at $100,000.

About 5 p.m., the 31-year-old was released from the Will County jail after he posted bond.

Zambrano was charged with aggravated battery with a firearm in connection with a May 7 incident.

Bretz argued that Zambrano is a lifelong resident of Joliet, is gainfully employed and has no felony convictions. He also argued that Zambrano was not a flight risk.

Will County Assistant State’s Attorney Erin Krone objected to lowering Zambrano’s bond based on the nature of the charge. Krone also argued that there was an allegation of Zambrano threatening a witness in the case and there were children connected to the incident.

Joliet police Sgt. Dwayne English said officers responded to a report of a man who had been shot in the 1000 block of North Raynor Avenue and found a male victim in the street in front of a residence with a gunshot wound to the groin.

Detectives working the case said two people were engaged in a physical altercation. After it ended, one person, who police alleged was Zambrano, shot the other man in the groin, English said.

Zambrano previously had been sentenced to 45 years in prison after a jury found him in guilty in 2013 of killing Robert Gooch in 2009 by shooting him in the head.

He then won an appeal in 2016 after the 3rd District Appellate Court found his attorneys failed to impeach a witness with evidence that he received immunity to testify and that his attorneys failed to tender a jury instruction for accomplice testimony.

A jury subsequently found Zambrano not guilty of killing Gooch after a second trial in 2019.

Will County State’s Attorney James Glasgow had said in a statement then that “it is always difficult for witnesses to testify a second time, especially in a case such as this one where literally a decade has passed since the alleged conduct at issue occurred.”

Pedro Sanchez, 42, had been found guilty of killing Gooch after a 2011 jury trial and is serving a 61-year prison sentence after his conviction was upheld by the appellate court in 2013. The two men were in a love triangle with Elissa Hinton and she chose Gooch, according to her trial testimony.