A 30-year-old man arrested more than four years ago in connection with a deadly shooting at a south Lubbock hotel was sentenced Friday to 10 years in prison after admitting to a felony weapons charge.
However, Gilbert Cardona III will begin serving his decade-long sentence after he completes the 12-year federal prison sentence he was handed in 2022 for an unrelated drug charge.
Cardona, who is being held at the Victorville federal prison in San Bernardino, California for an unrelated drug charge, appeared by telephone conference in the 140th District Court to enter a plea of being a felon in possession of a firearm, a third-degree felony that carries a punishment of two to 10 years in prison.
As part of his plea, prosecutors moved to dismiss a charge of murder filed against him in the Jan. 3, 2020, shooting death of 37-year-old Joshua Gomez at the former Hotel Ava in the 3200 block of South Loop 289.
His charge stems from a Lubbock Metropolitan Special Crimes investigation sparked by a 7:45 a.m. shots fired call at the hotel where responding officers found Gomez, suffering from a gunshot wound, lying on the floor of the hotel’s lobby near the entrance.