The ex-boyfriend of the daughter of the late president and CEO of a Bridgeport bank was sentenced to life in prison this week after he was found guilty of killing the woman’s fiance in San Diego.
Amy Gembara’s ex-boyfriend, Jesse Milton Alvarez, was sentenced Wednesday to life without parole. The sentencing came nearly a year after he was found guilty of first-degree murder in the Feb. 1, 2021, death of her fiance, Mario Fierrio.
John F. Gembara, Amy Gembara’s father, was CEO, president and board chairman of Washington Federal Bank for Savings, the Bridgeport institution he ran into the ground by embezzling millions of dollars. The Gembara family ran the bank for three generations.
Days after federal regulators discovered the embezzlement scheme, John Gembara was found dead Dec. 3, 2017, sitting in a chair with a rope around his neck in the Park Ridge bedroom of Marek Matczuk, a friend and contractor who owed the bank millions of dollars. The bank was closed Dec. 15, 2017.
In the San Diego case, Fierro, 37, was gunned down as he was preparing to leave for work at Cathedral Catholic High School, where Amy Gembara also works, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported. He was killed less than two months after the school announced he and Amy Gembara were engaged.
Alvarez made multiple online searches leading up to the shooting — including “how to shoot someone in self-defense,” and “how to kill your ex’s fiance,” according to the San Diego County district attorney’s office. Prosecutors say Alvarez waited outside Fierro’s home for nearly an hour on the day of the shooting.
Prosecutors alleged Alvarez was obsessed with Amy Gembara after she broke off their relationship, showing up at her home, trying to contact her through others, turning up while she was at Disneyland. He got a job in the school cafeteria but was escorted off campus when staffers recognized him from a school security flyer, the San Diego Union-Tribune reported.