Pedro Bravo’s murder trial likely won’t happen until next year.
Bravo, who is accused of kidnapping and killing UF student Christian Aguilar, appeared at a pretrial conference Friday at the Alachua County Courthouse as lawyers argued about a schedule for evidence discovery and the depositions of 103 witnesses.
Judge Denise Ferrero, who recently took over the case from Peter Sieg, set a deposition cutoff date of Jan. 14.
State Attorney Brian Kramer said witnesses live across the state — in Tampa, Orlando and Miami, where the Aguilar family drove from to attend Friday’s conference — so travel must be considered.
“We have a genuine desire to have this case brought to trial in a reasonable time period,” Kramer said.
Bravo’s defense lawyer, Michael Ruppert, said he’s set some deposition dates for mid-September.
“I understand the family wants this to come to closure,” Ruppert said.
Kramer also mentioned he was waiting to receive test results on two pieces of evidence: the duct tape used to bind Aguilar and a computer seized from Bravo’s apartment.
Contact Julia Glum at jglum@alligator.org.
