BEAUFORT, S.C. (Dec. 18, 2024) – A Bluffton man who took his girlfriend to a Hilton Head Island apartment to have a paid sexual encounter with another man has been convicted of numerous crimes after he showered bullets through the apartment became the tryst was taking too long.
A Beaufort County General Sessions jury on Wednesday found Francisco Cortes, 30, guilty of two charges of attempted murder. He also was convicted of assault and battery of a high and aggravated nature, two charges of discharging a firearm into a dwelling and one count of possession of a weapon during commission of a violent crime.
He was sentenced to 22 years in prison.
“This defendant has a penchant for violence and a compulsion to control and own everyone around him,” said Samantha Molina of the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office, who prosecuted the case. “Not only did he endanger his girlfriend, he jeopardized the lives of at least seven other people in the complex that night.”
On July 5, 2021, Beaufort County Sheriff’s Office deputies were called to The Oaks, a Hilton Head Island apartment complex. Two people there – Cortes’ girlfriend and a resident of the unit who was not involved in her sex-for-hire plan – suffered gunshot wounds. The woman, bleeding profusely from her right arm, initially refused to name her assailant for fear of “getting in trouble” but then conceded that her jealous boyfriend was the shooter.
Earlier in the evening, Cortes dropped off his girlfriend at The Oaks, where she agreed to have sex with a man who lived there. They went to his apartment, which he shared with three other roommates. The roommates worked at different local restaurants owned by the same man, but they did not know each other well.
Cortes waited in his vehicle, a white Ford F-150 pickup truck. Later, the john asked to extend his time with Cortes’ girlfriend, who accepted $400 in additional payment. Cortes objected, however. He exited his pick-up, then began banging on the apartment door.
When the john opened the door, he saw Cortes with his gun and closed it quickly. Cortes then fired four shots through the door with a 9mm handgun, striking one of the roommates who was sleeping in his bed. When the firing paused, the girlfriend opened the door again, but Cortes fired two more shots, one of them striking his girlfriend in the arm.
Some of the bullets penetrated the wall and went into a neighboring apartment, where three people lived. No one in that unit was injured. However, one of the residents, a student, had been studying at desk where a bullet whizzed past just before the shooting began.
The apartment complex’s security cameras captured Cortes on the property with a gun near the apartment just before the shootings took place. It also captures him fleeing in his vehicle immediately after the incident.
Molina called 15 witnesses during three days of testimony at the Beaufort County Courthouse. Among the evidence she presented were recorded jail phone calls between Cortes and his girlfriend, in which he encouraged her to lie about the incident and to not show up for court.
Molina was assisted by Assistant Solicitor Rachel DeAngelis, Investigator Mike Winston and victim advocates Karen Padilla and Maria Castillo.
Circuit Court Judge Kristi F. Curtis handed down the sentence. She also signed a permanent restraining order prohibiting Cortes from having any contact with key witnesses in the case, including his girlfriend.
Cortes’ criminal history includes previous convictions in multiple states for burglary, theft, arson, driving under suspension, possession of marijuana and multiple charges of public disorderly conduct. He also has a pending charge of pointing a firearm at a person. He is innocent of that charge until proven guilty in a court of law.
Molina is a member of the Career Criminal Unit, which prosecutes the circuit’s most violent and habitual offenders. That team has earned convictions against 505 of the 556 defendants it has prosecuted since its formation in 2009.
