A 37-year-old man charged with killing a 56-year-old man in the victim’s Bellingham Street apartment last year was today ordered held without bail, Suffolk County District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said.

MARIO CRUZADO (D.O.B. 7/10/73), who has no permanent address, was charged with one count of murder for the Nov. 26, 2010 homicide of Frederick Allen. A Medical Examiner determined that the victim died of blunt force trauma to the head. Cruzado was arrested last night by members of the Massachusetts State Police Violent Fugitive Apprehension Section, State Police detectives assigned to DA Conley’s office, and Chelsea Police Department officers in the South End on a homicide warrant that was issued on April 13.

At today’s arraignment, Assistant District Attorney Holly Broadbent told the court that on the afternoon of November 24, the victim’s boyfriend was drinking in the Bellingham Square area of Chelsea when he encountered Cruzado – an acquaintance of his whom he had not seen for quite some time. After drinking alcohol together, Broadbent said, the two men decided to go back to the Bellingham Street residence where Allen and his boyfriend lived.

Once back at the apartment, Broadbent said, the three men drank alcohol together for a short period of time and then, “the victim’s boyfriend escorted the defendant back to the Bellingham Square area and left him there.”

When the victim’s boyfriend returned to the home, Broadbent said, Allen confronted his boyfriend about bringing Cruzado to the apartment. Broadbent told the court that Allen’s boyfriend told investigators that he then left the apartment that night and didn’t return.

Broadbent said that the boyfriend’s account of his actions that night were corroborated by a witness, who told investigators that he spoke with the victim by phone on the evening of Nov. 24. During that conversation, Broadbent said, Allen told the witness that he had argued with his boyfriend about bringing a stranger to the apartment, and that his boyfriend had left the apartment. Broadbent said that Allen also told the witness that, “at some point the stranger had returned back to the apartment alone after the victim’s boyfriend had left.” Broadbent said that Allen, “expressed to the witness by phone that he was worried about the stranger who had come back to the apartment.”

Broadbent told the court that during the course of the investigation, authorities learned about a phone conversation that Cruzado had had with witnesses in the weeks after the murder. During the phone conversation, “the defendant admitted to being present inside of a Chelsea apartment and placing a man who owned the apartment in a chokehold,” Broadbent said. She further told the court that Cruzado said that, “he left the man unconscious on the floor of the apartment before he left – not knowing if he had left him alive or dead.”

Broadbent said that when investigators interviewed the defendant on two occasions, he admitted to drinking the day before Thanksgiving with a man known to the Commonwealth as the victim’s boyfriend, but that he denied knowing the victim or going to his apartment. Broadbent told the court that phone records show that the defendant made a series of phone calls from Allen’s home phone on November 24.

Allen’s body was discovered in his home on Nov. 26, 2010.

Cruzado is represented by attorney Matthew Feinberg and is expected to return to court on May 24.