Last month, I wrote about one witness' testimony during the trial of two of the dozen+ assailants of a teenage girl in Richmond, California, in 2009. That trial has now ended, and both of the men have been found guilty of multiple felony charges.
Marcelles Peter, 20, of Pinole and Jose Montano, 22, of Richmond showed no emotion when the verdicts were read in a Martinez courtroom, but their mothers wept in the gallery. Peter's attorney, Gordon Brown, put his arm around his client's shoulder.Two more assailants have been identified and await trial.
The victim, referred to in court as "Jane Doe," wasn't in court, nor was her family. But the Richmond police detectives who worked the case for months before making arrests sat in the front row, as a sort of proxy for the girl, said police Capt. Mark Gagan.
Peter's and Montano's cases were joined together, but separate juries listened to the evidence during the six-week trial before Judge Barbara Zuniga of Contra Costa County Superior Court. The panel for Peter reached its verdicts Tuesday; the jury for Montano took one extra day.
Peter and Montano will be sentenced Aug. 15. They face the prospect of terms of 33 years to life in prison for the Oct. 24, 2009, attack outside Richmond High.
...A juror in Montano's case, a 59-year-old man who didn't want to be identified, said he "really didn't want to believe that (Montano) was guilty" but that the evidence proved otherwise.
My heart is with Jane Doe. I hope these convictions bring to her some sense of justice, and eventually some bit of peace.
[My thanks to Shaker A for passing that along.]
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