The witnesses fell apart — one of them was threatened while on the stand — helping to spring a reputed gang member charged with killing an Air Force veteran who was visiting relatives in the Bronx.  “I’m going to kill you,” the defendant mouthed, as a woman testified, court sources told the Daily News.  Relatives of 21-year-old Fabian Gonzalez, caught in the middle of a senseless gang beef while in town to see his cousin’s new baby, were stunned after a judge ruled prosecutors did not present enough proof that Jordan Agosto carried out the crime.  “I can’t believe it,” the victim’s mother Stephanie Saldana-Sanchez told The News when asked about the verdict handed down last month.  Gonzalez, who lived in Virginia and had served overseas in the military, was fatally shot when a Crips member opened fire on a stoop where he was sitting on Lyvere St. near E. Tremont Ave. on May 27, 2012, cops said.  Minutes earlier, the pack of gangsters had bumped into another crew — not including Gonzalez — at a nearby bodega and vowed to shoot up the block, prosecutors charged.  A woman who said she saw Agosto walk away from the murder scene with an object stuffed into his pocket left the courtroom in hysterics in the middle of her testimony. She claimed Agosto threatened her. When the spooked witness returned, she told Judge William Mogulescu of Agosto’s alleged death threat, before the trial in Bronx Supreme Court continued, sources said.  More damaging to the prosecution’s case was that the sole witness, who had tagged Agosto on the night of the murder, had professed doubts since the murder.  The witness admitted to a defense attorney’s private investigator that she wasn’t sure Agosto, 21, was the shooter, court observers told The News.  Gonzalez’s family believes the witnesses were tainted by fears that members of the Crips would target them for testifying.  “They were afraid. They still live in the same building. They walk around the neighborhood and see these people affiliated with the defendant. Would you not be afraid?” one of the slain veteran’s relatives told The News.  Agosto’s lawyers, Ed McGowan and Amy Gallichio of the Bronx Defenders, argued that the witness had mistakenly mixed him up with the real shooter, who was also wearing a black hooded sweatshirt.  Police never recovered the murder weapon, and did not test Agosto's hands for gunshot residue after arresting him minutes after the murder.  The victim’s mother, also a military vet, said cops should have done more to solve the case.  “You would think that if you are arrested for shooting somebody, they would test your hands. But they didn’t do it,” Saldana-Sanchez said.  A homicide investigation expert said police should have run the residue test, but it probably would not have saved the case from its problems with witnesses.  “Once the eyewitnesses start floundering, the case is finished. That just puts the doubt on everything,” said Joseph Giacalone, an adjunct professor at John Jay College of Criminal Justice who was once the commanding officer of the Bronx Cold Case Squad.  At the end of the bench trial, Justice Mogulescu said there was simply not enough evidence to prove that Agosto was the one who fired the fatal shots — or even that he had a gun in the first place.  “I am not satisfied that the people have satisfied their burden of proof beyond a reasonable doubt,” the judge said, dismissing the murder, manslaughter and weapons possession charges.  Agosto was released after spending over three years at Rikers Island, including a one-year sentence on a separate robbery charge, and two years on a riot rap he picked up while at the jail.
Family members of slain Air Force veteran Fabian Gonzalez were stunned when a judge threw out the case against his alleged killer.