RACINE, Wis. — A Racine County murder victim's family is furious after the man previously convicted of killing Juanita Zdroik pleaded guilty to lesser charges — and will walk free in less than a year.
Miguel Cruz's murder conviction was vacated last year following a successful appeal. Instead of retrying the murder case, Cruz pleaded guilty to intimidation of a witness and intimidation of a victim, as party to a crime. The lesser charges come after Cruz's attorneys and prosecutors agreed to a plea deal. With time served, Cruz will be released on extended supervision next year.
Juanita Zdroik's son, Zachary Zdroik, says he knew the justice he once felt was in jeopardy for his mother, but never expected this outcome 26 years later.
"The result is not justice," Zdroik said. "It is one more loss my family is being told to accept."
According to the criminal complaint, Juanita witnessed a double homicide in Milwaukee in 2000. She was then taken to rural Racine County and shot in the head.
Court records show the case went cold for more than a decade until witnesses came forward to Milwaukee investigators, claiming Cruz pulled the trigger and said, "This is what happens to snitches."
Cruz was convicted in 2021, but that conviction was vacated after his attorneys successfully argued he did not get a fair trial.
"At retrial, the jury would have heard corrected evidence that Mr. Cruz was excluded from all relevant DNA samples," Cruz's attorney Natalie Wisco said.
Court records show the 2021 jury never learned about issues with how an analyst presented DNA evidence, or questions about the credibility of two detectives who investigated the case — based on their alleged conduct in other, unrelated cases.
Prosecutor Dirk Jensen acknowledged the outcome.
"I would be disingenuous if I didn't agree that the system has let them down," Jensen said.
The DA's office says that, to secure a conviction with the evidence that remained, prosecutors agreed to lesser charges in exchange for a guilty plea.
Cruz addressed the court following the plea.
"I thank the court for all the meaningful consideration they have, it gave to my case," Cruz said.
Judge Scott Craig imposed the maximum sentence, meaning Cruz will be back in the community next year on probation for a decade.
"I guess I'm stuck here thinking about what's fair and what's right," Craig said.
Zachary says he spent months calling on the DA's office to take the murder case back to trial. Now he is left wondering if anyone will be held responsible for his mother's death.
"He's admitting to being there, intimidating my mom that led to her death," Zdroik said. "Ultimately, it's a broken system. I think everyone sees that today. And moving forward, I mean, I don't know how anyone has confidence in what happened today.”
Cruz's attorney declined an interview request and sent TMJ4 the following statement: "Today’s resolution was a compromise that neither side entered into lightly. The defense position remains clear: Miguel Cruz did not kill Juanita Zdroik. However, the risks of a second trial were real for both sides. The State has now obtained two non-homicide felony convictions and avoided the genuine possibility of an acquittal at a retrial on a materially different evidentiary record. Mr. Cruz has now eliminated any risk that he could be wrongfully convicted of homicide and sentenced to life a second time in a trial that would have depended heavily on incentivized testimony; and an investigation where the defense identified serious confirmation-bias concerns and the stark absence of nationally accepted cold-case investigation protocols.
We believed the parties’ joint recommendation of nine years of initial confinement and ten years of extended supervision was substantial, appropriate, and fully accounted for the seriousness of the amended convictions. We are of course disappointed that the court declined to follow that recommendation and instead imposed the statutory maximum. However, that decision does not alter the compromise that led to the resolution, and nothing in our position diminishes the profound loss suffered by Juanita’s family or the power of the victim-impact statements delivered today in court."
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