Former Dixon drug dealer gets life in prison

VALLEJO — In 1998, Wilberto Belardo was dealing drugs in the small town of Dixon when he robbed, shot and killed one of his competitors. For more than a decade, Belardo may have believed he got away with murder.

Belardo, 32, was sentenced Thursday to life in prison without possibility of parole for committing a murder during a robbery.

Belardo was arrested in 2009 after a pair of investigators, Jose Cuevas and Ronald Becker, re-opened the cold case a year earlier. Cuevas and Becker work for the Solano County District Attorney’s Office.

Dixon police investigating the Feb. 15, 1998, shooting of Joseph Zarate in his trailer suspected Belardo but were never able to make the case against him. One of the challenges in the investigation were the lies Belardo’s wife and brother told to police.

After more than a decade Belardo, long gone from Dixon, was divorced and had a longstanding falling out with his brother. When the ex-wife and brother talked to Cuevas and Becker in 2008, they told very different stories than they had given years earlier.

At Belardo’s trial earlier this year, his brother testified that Belardo, he was 20 in 1998, had tried to convince him to take the rap for killing Zarate. The brother was 15 at the time. Belardo’s ex-wife testified that Belardo had confessed his role in the killing to her before their divorce.

She was 17 at the time of the killing.

Reach Jess Sullivan at 427-6919 or at jsullivan@dailyrepublic.net.

Short URL: http://www.dailyrepublic.com/?p=78636

Posted by Jess Sullivan on Aug 18 2011.

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