A 24-year-old Tacoma woman pleaded not guilty on Tuesday to first-degree attempted murder in connection with the Kent man shot in the face outside of a Panther Lake Starbucks.
Fermina Bartolini Bertos is scheduled for a King County Superior Court hearing Aug. 7 at the Maleng Regional Justice Center in Kent, according to the King County Prosecuting Attorney’s Office. A judge could set a trial date or attorneys could ask for more time to prepare the case. Bertos remained in custody in the county jail in Seattle with bail set at $1 million.
Prosecutors filed the charge on July 18 against Bertos. She did not speak to detectives about the shooting of Dennis E. Madrigal, 23, at about 12:21 p.m. on July 15 at the Starbucks in the 10700 block of Southeast 208th Street. She reportedly told her mother and brother that Madrigal had raped her so she shot him, according to charging papers.
Madrigal, during an interview with detectives at Harborview Medical Center in Seattle, said Bertos did nothing to indicate she didn’t want to participate in a sexual encounter. He said he met the woman about three months ago at a party and they recently started seeing each other.
Bertos reportedly shot Madrigal once in the face with a .45-caliber handgun she pulled from her purse. She then fled the scene and a few hours later turned herself in to Tacoma Police.
Kent detectives reviewed video surveillance footage from a nearby business that captured the shooting. The video showed Madrigal and Bertos walking to the Starbucks when the woman pulled out a gun from her purse and shot the man.
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