Oct. 24--A Chicago man was sentenced Friday to 17 1/2 years in federal prison after being found guilty this past spring of trying to arrange the killings of two witnesses slated to testify at his son's murder trial.
Euripides Caguana, 61, wanted to have witnesses in his son Travis Caguana's murder case killed. The elder Caguana, also known as "Caca," was arrested in October 2013 after authorities said he provided cash for a gun and offered to pay up to $7,500 to an undercover informant to have the two witnesses killed. At the time, his son, Travis Caguana, was about to go on trial in the June 2011 gang-related slaying of Dante Smallwood, according to a criminal complaint filed against the elder Caguana.
The elder Caguana "did not want to see that justice was done. He wanted to only see his son free -- at any cost and without a trial," Assistant U.S. Attorney Peter Salib said in a prosecutors' sentencing memorandum.
Caguana's attorney had argued that he had been entrapped by a police informant and an undercover officer whom Caguana offered to pay $7,500 -- plus $500 to buy a gun -- to kill the witnesses in October 2013.
After talking and meeting with the informant and the undercover officer over a few days, Caguana was arrested as he got back in his vehicle following a meeting with the two men at Chase Park in the Uptown neighborhood.
Smallwood, 18, was fatally shot June 8, 2011, while walking with another man in the 3400 block of West 79th Street, authorities said. He died the next morning.
Travis Caguana still faces murder and weapons charges and is being held without bond at Cook County Jail, according to court records.
Sentencing for Euripedes Caguana is set for Sept. 16
jmeisner@tribpub.com
