Jury convicts man who implicated himself in 2012 botched Lakewood drug hit

A jury Wednesday convicted a man who inadvertently implicated himself in a botched Lakewood drug hit in 2012.

William Alvarez-Calo, 30, is to be sentenced Nov. 28 for first-degree murder, first-degree burglary and attempted first-degree robbery.

The jury found him not guilty of tampering with a witness, the Pierce County Prosecutor’s Office said Thursday.

Prosecutors argued Alvarez-Calo helped organize the Nov. 12, 2012, shooting of a rival drug dealer in a Mexican cartel, and that the group ended up killing the intended target’s roommate and cousin, Jaime Diaz-Solis, 32.

Of the six others charged in Diaz-Solis’ death, four pleaded guilty and two were convicted at trial.

Alvarez-Calo’s interviews with investigators were key to solving the case, which went without leads for months.

He offered to trade information with police about the cartel homicide to get off on lesser charges for identity theft and driving with a suspended license. In the process, he implicated himself in the homicide, and found himself charged with first-degree murder.

Alvarez-Calo argued he wasn’t read his Miranda rights, which include the right to remain silent and the right to an attorney, when he became a suspect.

Superior Court Judge Frank Cuthbertson initially ruled that two of those recorded interviews were admissible at trial and that two weren’t.

Prosecutors asked Cuthbertson to review the decision, and in the end the judge allowed all four interviews to be part of the trial.

This story was originally published November 10, 2016 at 1:09 PM with the headline "Jury convicts man who implicated himself in 2012 botched Lakewood drug hit."