Bluffton man sent to prison after 2021 shooting during sex-for-hire plot on Hilton Head
A Bluffton man will spend nearly two decades in prison after being convicted of shooting his girlfriend and another person during a sex-for-hire operation at a Hilton Head Island apartment complex, according to the 14th Circuit Solicitor’s Office.
Francisco Cortes, 30, was found guilty by a Beaufort County jury Wednesday of two counts of attempted murder, two counts of discharging a firearm into a dwelling, felony assault and battery and a firearm possession offense.
He was sentenced to 22 years in prison with credit for 1,262 days already spent in jail, reducing his total sentence to about 18.5 years, according to judicial records.
Sheriff’s office deputies responded to a report of gunfire around 4 a.m. July 5, 2021 at The Oaks, a north-end Hilton Head apartment community near Sea Turtle Marketplace. Two people had been struck by bullets, including Cortes’ girlfriend, who was “bleeding profusely from her right arm,” according to a solicitor’s office press release.
Investigators learned that Cortes had dropped his girlfriend off at the apartment complex earlier that night after she agreed to have sex with a male resident in exchange for money, according to prosecutors. Cortes reportedly waited outside the unit in his pickup truck.
When the resident asked to extend his time for an additional $400, Cortes objected, leaving his truck and banging on the apartment door, the release says.
Cortes then allegedly fired six shots into the unit with a 9mm handgun, striking his girlfriend in the arm and a roommate of the male resident, who was sleeping in his bed. The bullets also “whizzed past” another roommate who was studying at his desk and penetrated the wall into a neighboring unit, according to the news release.
Three days after the shooting, Cortes was arrested in Jasper County for allegedly breaking into and robbing a Yemassee-area church three days in a row. He was transferred to the Beaufort County Detention Center and charged for the Hilton Head incident in April 2022, according to previous reporting by The Island Packet and Beaufort Gazette.
Assistant Solicitor Samantha Molina, who prosecuted the case, said security cameras at The Oaks captured Cortes with a gun moments before the shooting, as well as the defendant fleeing in his truck immediately after. The prosecution’s evidence included recorded jail phone calls between Cortes and his girlfriend wherein he “encouraged” her to lie about the shooting and to not show up for court, the release says.
Circuit Court Judge Kristi F. Curtis handed down the sentence Wednesday and signed a permanent restraining order barring Cortes from contacting “key witnesses” in the case, including his girlfriend.
