A man acquitted of murder Monday was arrested Tuesday and charged in federal court with possessing a firearm as a felon.
Miguel Quinones, 37, was acquitted Monday of the murder of Kareem Hunter, 28, who was beaten in a Marmet apartment in 2013. Hunter was reported missing in September 2013 and was found buried in a shallow grave in Raleigh County two months later.
Jason Berty, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Social Security Agency, filed the criminal complaint and U.S. Magistrate Judge Dwane Tinsley signed the complaint Tuesday.
Quinones was convicted of second-degree murder 16 years ago in Fayette County Circuit Court. A Fayette County jury convicted him in the 1995 killing of Christopher Reardon, a Beckley bar owner.
Police found Reardon dead inside a van near Oak Hill. It was later discovered that he had been shot in an Oak Hill home and moved to the van.
Quinones was released in 2011, but remained on probation.
In December 2013, Quinones was arrested at his girlfriend's Charleston townhouse for allegedly violating his probation and was soon after charged for Hunter's death. According to the complaint, a loaded and functional Sig Sauer M400 rifle was "in plain view" in a bedroom at the home during his arrest.
Raleigh County attorneys Robert Dunlap and Amy Osgood were representing Quinones when he was acquitted this week. His case was delayed multiple times because of his requests for new attorneys.
The six-day trial introduced to jurors more than 100 exhibits of evidence and four days of testimony.
Kanawha County prosecutors argued that cellphone records tied Quinones to the scene of the beating. According to the prosecutors, Quinones' cellphone was in Marmet when Hunter was beaten. It was then tracked to Beckley and Old Turnpike Road, where Hunter's body was discovered, they said, on the day of his death.
Quinones' attorneys raised doubts about the records as well as the testimonies of Deveron Patterson and Kelsey Legg, who alleged that Quinones was involved in the apartment killing. Both Patterson and Legg made plea agreements with prosecutors that included testimony against Quinones. Patterson pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison with the possibility of parole. Legg pleaded guilty to accessory to murder and was sentenced to six to eight years in prison.
Quinones had spent the last 2 1/2 years behind bars, awaiting trial for Hunter's murder.
He is being held at South Central Regional Jail.
Reach Jared Casto at jared.casto@wvgazettemail.com, 304-348-4832 or follow @JaredCasto on Twitter.