The story begins over two years ago. Ricardo Medina Jr. and Josh Sutter were roommates in California when on January 31, 2015 an argument involving Medina’s girlfriend broke out and 36-year-old Josh Sutter was stabbed to death, per Variety. Sutter was stabbed multiple times in the abdomen and died soon afterward. Medina was picked up by police later that day and originally the actor claimed no responsibility for the death, according to Comicbook, and would have faced 26 years-to-life in prison if proven guilty with this previous plea. However Medina and his attorney are singing a new song, and he will face only six years maximum of jail time with a guilty plea for voluntary manslaughter. His official sentencing is not until March 30th.
Ricardo Medina played the Red Ranger (Cole Evans) in 40 episodes of Power Rangers Wild Force, a 2002 TV series. One opinion on Den of Geek in 2014 was that Medina was “pretty embarrassing as a Red Ranger,” and perhaps not the most talented actor to play the role. There probably have been many better Red Rangers, who also didn’t crawl around on all-fours.
Medina returned to the Power Rangers franchise in 2011 to play the villain Deker for another 24 episodes in Power Rangers Samauri. In an additional flair of the dramatic, Medina admits to the use of a samurai sword in the 2015 stabbing, which he maintains was perpetrated in self defense. Perhaps it would have been an entirely different story had there not been an actual samurai sword lying around the apartment, but of course decor is a personal choice.
This news conveniently comes to us just in time to increase interest in the brand new Power Rangers movie which will premiere in one week on March 24, 2017. To be fair, the Power Rangers origin story reboot does look pretty darn cool.