A repeat violent offender from Connecticut has been accused of a murder in South Carolina after being spared prison a year ago and then walking away from rehabilitation programs that involved counseling, equine therapy, poetry writing, art classes and “restorative justice” with “roots in indigenous communities.”
Branden Huertas, 42, of Bridgeport, is one of two suspects charged in the June killing of a 20-year old college finance student who was shot to death while sitting in his car after working out with friends at a Myrtle Beach gym.
Authorities in South Carolina quickly tied Huertas to the crime. But he could not be located until July 9, when he and the other murder suspect were tracked to a Danbury motel by police officers investigating the attempted thefts of ATM machines.
In April 2022, about 14 months before the South Carolina killing, Huertas was scheduled to be sentenced in Connecticut to up to eight years in prison on drug and gun charges for what then was his third conviction in successive federal cases involving drugs, guns or both. His quarter century long criminal record also includes multiple state convictions for robbery, assault, drug offenses and firearms crimes.
Now-retired U.S. District Judge Janet Bond Arterton put the April 2022 sentencing on hold after an extensive plea for mercy based on what Huerta’s public defender and others asserted was a remarkable willingness he had shown to turn his life around. Public Defender Kelly M. Barrett called the transformation “credible, overwhelming, and uncontested.”
At the “gold standard of treatment in Connecticut”
Postponing the imposition of a sentence, Barrett told the court at the 2022 hearing, would allow Huertas to continue with a private recovery program to which he had been admitted and, hopefully, allow him to continue his rehabilitation by moving on to a less restrictive program.
At the time of the postponed sentencing, Huertas was enrolled in a residential drug and alcohol program called Trinity Glen in Sharon, which his lawyer called the “gold standard of treatment in Connecticut,” and a place that targets “men who have been unable to maintain a sober lifestyle despite previous attempts.” Huertas was described in court as suffering from marijuana and phencyclidine “use disorder.”
“One of the hallmarks is that it’s surrounded by the beautiful Berkshire Mountains in Sharon, Connecticut, and is situated on a 50-some acre wooded property, and it’s — the community is designed to provide a peaceful environment where clients can really do the deep thinking that they need to make meaningful change and it is expected that people that are there are not there just to make it through the program but to actually take meaningful changes in their life, to follow the rules, and that’s why so many people in the Trinity Glen program get kicked out,” Barrett said, according to a transcript of the hearing. “Many have been kicked out while Mr. Huertas was there.”
“Mr. Huertas has completed equine therapy, meditative walk therapy, art therapy,” Barrett said. “I’ve shown the Court and I have with me different examples of Mr. Huertas’ art that he’s been willing to embrace even though he was never an artist previously, but it’s given him great peace. He’s written poetry. He’s opened up to male authority figures and counselors, two of whom are present today — three of whom, actually, are present today.”
In equine therapy, Huertas and other men worked with “abused or abandoned horses” in a way that allowed them “to care for the animals as a therapeutic tool; they benefit from both the companionship of the animals and the sense of accomplishment they get from caring from another living being.”
Adam Swenson, who described himself as a “substance abuse disorder technician” at Trinity Glen, was one of the counselors who described Herta’s progress to the court.
“He made me very emotional, as I’m an emotional person, as you can see, and I went to give him a hug and he proceeded to hug me back, but it struck him off guard,” Swenson said. “He looked at me dead in the eyes with tears coming out and said that was the first time he’s ever hugged a male authority role model. I have a hard time keeping it together because it was a beautiful experience and I’ll never forget it.”
“It’s the community that ends up suffering”
Federal prosecutors Lauren C. Clark tried to persuade the court at the same 2022 hearing that Huertas should be sent to prison based on his latest crimes, his extensive criminal history — he had been in prison almost continuously since 1998 — and the fact that he had absconded from what she called similar rehabilitative programs after his two prior criminal sentencings. After his first federal conviction, Clark said Huertas ran away from a halfway house and, after the second, he violated the terms of his probation
The reason Huertas was back in federal court in April 2022 for a third federal sentencing, Clark told the judge, was because, after another “comprehensive treatment program” seven months earlier, “Mr. Huertas re-entered the community, immediately purchased a firearm, he purchased a variety of controlled substances. And in this respect, nothing here is new to Mr. Huertas.”
“I think what it starts to feel like is that somehow this was the Court’s fault or probation’s fault or someone else’s fault other than Mr. Huertas for not complying, but that goes to the heart of what he’s asking for now,” Clark said at the 2022 sentencing hearing. “He’s asking the Court to essentially give him 24 months at this structured housing, two years, and then be released into the community, but he has demonstrated at every step that he, at least historically, is not willing to do that.”
Clark urged the judge to impose an immediate prison sentence ”because we know at the end of the day, for every chance that Mr. Huertas is given, it might not be us standing here in the room who feel the effects of the crime that’s committed, but it’s the community that ends up suffering.”
“Someone ends up getting beaten up,” she said. “Someone ends up being sold drugs. Someone ends up having to live in a community where Mr. Huertas possesses a firearm.”
When it was his turn to speak at the 2022 hearing, Hertas told the court he was “a man who is transforming.”
“In the past, I stood before you making excuses,” Huertas told the judge. “Today, I won’t do that. Today, I’m here as a man with a deeper understanding of the harm I caused others, my community, my family, the court. I’m here as a man that knows I must repair the harm I caused. I never realized the negative impact I caused my community because I just didn’t care. I see now my actions caused pain, hurt, tears to children, mothers, fathers, grandparents.”
If he is returned to a high security penitentiary, Huertas told the court he will have to revert to his old self to survive.
“There is no way that I can go up there and not lose my humanity,” he said. “I have to survive. If I don’t, I’ll be eaten alive. There is no room for weakness up there.”
As the 2.5-hour long hearing concluded, Arterton agreed with the prosecution that there was reason to be concerned that Huertas presented “a risk to the community” and that “it sounds like we’ve been here before, as you say.”
But Arterton also wondered aloud, What if they were wrong? What if Huertas presented less risk to society than the trauma of high security prison presented to him.
“What if something has happened?” the judge asked.
In the end, Arterton decided to postpone sentencing Huertas for at least six months until October 2022, at which point she said she would review his progress and decide whether to send him to prison then or allow him to continue to rehabilitate himself under successively less restrictive conditions.
Huertas’ public defenders, as well as federal probation officers and others involved in his treatment either declined to discuss his case or did not respond to inquiries.
Huertas had begun his treatment in an addiction program at Connecticut Valley Hospital in Middletown, then graduated to Trinity Glen in Sharon. A day after Arterton’s decision, he transferred to the Sobering Center in Danbury, where he awaited an open bed in a two-bedroom townhouse at Sunrise Terrace in Danbury.
While living at Sunrise, in accordance with the program rules, Huertas got a job, enrolled in community college and continued to participate in outpatient rehabilitative programs.
At the six month review in October 2022, court records show Huertas was permitted to stay at Sunrise and stay out of prison. As he progressed through his treatment, he had more freedom of movement. In late 2022 he was allowed to remove the electronic monitor that tracked his location.
“Some sort of criminal proceedings”
Nine months later, on July 6, 2023, the soon-to-retire Arterton convened a telephone conference with the lawyers in the case. Huertas’ public defender wanted Arterton to resolve the question of his prison sentence before she left the bench. But Arterton said, according to a transcript, that she had learned Hueretas was involved in “some sort of criminal proceedings in South Carolina” that “majorly affect this.”
Clark told the others that Huertas and another man were suspects in the Myrtle Beach murder and that an arrest warrant for Huertas had been issued in South Carolina a week earlier.
“And my understanding is, at least from last week, that Mr. Huertas’ whereabouts are currently not known,” Clark said.
A person familiar with events in the case said that Huertas told his probation officer a week before the killing that could not be reached for a while because he was undergoing a medical procedure.
Three days after the telephone conference, police officers investigating attempts to steal ATM machines in Danbury and Southington tracked Huertas to the Danbury motel.
“As officers attempted to take the two men into custody, they both ran,” according to a prosecution filing in federal court. “Huertas was able to escape. The other suspect began fighting with officers, resulting in two of the officers being transported to the hospital for injuries. Both Huertas and the other suspect were eventually located in a nearby wooded area and taken into custody. During a search of Huertas’s hotel room, officers located two firearms, including an assault-type rifle and a pistol.”
Huertas finally was sentenced Wednesday for the outstanding drug and gun charges. U.S. District Victor Bolden, who replaced Arterton, sent him to prison for six years and three months.
He faces more time in prison for the attempted ATM thefts in Connecticut and the South Carolina murder.
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