A federal magistrate judge on Monday advanced the case against a man who was acquitted of murder last week, then quickly charged with a federal gun crime.
Miguel Quinones, 37, was charged June 14 by criminal complaint with being a felon in possession of a firearm - a day after he was acquitted of the murder of Kareem Hunter, 28, who was beaten in a Marmet apartment in 2013 and buried in a shallow grave in Raleigh County.
U.S. Magistrate Judge Cheryl Eifert, during a preliminary hearing in Huntington on Monday, "found probable cause that the defendant had committed the crime contained in the criminal complaint," court documents states. Eifert also ordered Quinones continue to be held in the custody of U.S. Marshals.
The judge wrote that "by a preponderance of evidence that the defendant is a risk of flight."
Quinones' preliminary hearing was held in Huntington by Eifert because U.S. Magistrate Judge Dwane Tinsley is "out of district" all week, according to the court's calendar for West Virginia's Southern District. Tinsley is assigned the case and is the judge who signed the complaint against Quinones, which was filed by Jason Berty, of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, Firearms and Explosives and Social Security Agency.
Berty was called to testify during Monday's hearing.
In December 2013, when Quinones was arrested at his girlfriend's Charleston townhouse for allegedly violating probation, a loaded and functional Sig Sauer M400 riffle was "in plain view" in a bedroom at the home, the complaint states.
Quinones was convicted 16 years ago of second-degree murder in the 1995 death of Christopher Reardon, a Beckley bar owner. He was released in 2011, but remained on probation. The felony conviction prohibited him from having a gun, the federal allegation states.
Shortly after Quinones' arrest in December 2013, he was charged with Hunter's death. After a six-day trial, jurors took about eight hours to find him not guilty of the murder charge.