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“I am ready to leave behind the label of victim and trade it to survivor“, said the clear, triumphant voice on a computer screen before a packed courtroom and a convicted murderer who killed her fiancee in North Park.
That’s what Amy Gembara said at the recent sentencing of her former boyfriend, Jessie Alvarez, 34, who shot her fiance, Mario Fierro, 37, six times outside his North Park home on Feb. 1, 2021.
“I stand for those whose voices cannot be heard. I stand for women who have experienced domestic violence, not here today, who have had to deal with men who cannot take “NO” for an answer,” said Gembara.
“I haven’t felt safe since that convict attempted to break into my apartment in 2019,” said Gembara, a teacher at Cathedral Catholic High School where she met Fierro, who also taught there.
San Diego Superior Court Judge Daniel Goldstein gave Gembara all the time she needed before sentencing Alvarez Feb. 5 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, a term Gembara recommended.
“He made it his full time job to stalk me…and eventually Mario. He harassed me to the point of exhaustion, with creepy tactics of trying to contact me,” said Gembara.
Gembara testified during the trial Alvarez followed her at Disneyland and he left messages for her, even in her classroom. Alvarez was hired to work in the high school cafeteria, but was fired after one day.
“This abnormal behavior infiltrated my life in so many ways…causing me much distress every day for years,” said Gembara.
“That murderer tried to take away Mario’s light by taking his life, but the thing about light is once you experience it, you are changed by it forever,” said Gembara.
“He took Mario’s life, but he cannot ever erase Mario’s memories and positive impact,” said Gembara. “I choose not to focus on the darkness. May the perpetual light shine forever upon Mario’s soul, and may God bless and heal the wounded hearts who loved him.”
A jury in March, 2024 convicted Alvarez of first-degree murder and with the special circumstance of lying in wait. Testimony showed he waited outside Fierro’s apartment on Kansas Street near Monroe Ave. Fierro was shot four times in the head, once in the back, and also in the arm.
“He sought out Mr. Fierro to inflict pain on Miss Gembara,” said Goldstein. “He lacks empathy. He lacks emotion. He’s a cold hearted killer.”
“This defendant is a possessive, jealous, callous, shallow man,” said Deputy District Attorney Ramona McCarthy, adding he “ambushed” the teacher as “a cold blooded vicious murderer.”
Alvarez’s attorney, Peter Blair, argued that he suffered from “severe autism” which was not discovered until after the shooting. Alvarez testified he also had obsessive/compulsive disorder.
Alvarez testified at trial that he shot Fierro in self-defense after the teacher attacked him.
Alvarez sat in a wheelchair in court, but his head was face down on a table. He showed no reaction to the sentence or testimony. At trial, he testified that Gembara was his only girlfriend and they were together four years.
Several days before, Alvarez overturned his wheelchair, causing his head to strike the floor. He was taken to a hospital for treatment of a bump on his head, said the judge.
Goldstein noted that Alvarez had served 1,466 days in jail since the shooting, but he doesn’t get credit for those days because the sentence is life without parole. He fined him $10,070.
Blair unsuccessfully asked the judge to not impose a life without parole sentencing, saying it was “cruel and unusual” for a person with autism.
The judge also denied Blair’s motion to dismiss the special circumstance verdict.
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