Three Men Robbed a Gas Station
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Iii men were convicted today of killing a 24-twelvemonth-old man on the 4th of July weekend in 2022 in Buena Park in an attempted robbery gone incorrect.
In an unusual trial featuring ii juries, both panels plant the defendants, Jeffrey Tuli, 38, Aaron Vermont Jackson, 41, and Dejon Vincent Griffin, 38, all of San Bernardino, guilty. The three are scheduled to be sentenced July 8 and face life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Orangish Canton Superior Court Gauge Gregg Prickett told the juries that he believed it was the beginning time the county has held a trial with two juries.
Tuli was convicted of murder with jurors also finding true a special circumstance allegation of killing during a robbery and a sentencing enhancement for the discharge of a gun causing death. Jackson and Griffin were convicted of murder with a special-circumstance accusation of killing during a robbery, attempted robbery and jurors also found truthful sentencing enhancements for the personal use of a gun.
The three were convicted of killing 24-year-one-time Maher Yousef of La Mirada on July i, 2016, at a gas station at 5989 Beach Blvd., most Artesia Boulevard. Yousef and his friend Hanna Asia had but left a check-cashing business concern where he worked when they pulled into the gas station that evening because the Dodge Charger they were in had a apartment tire. Ane of the defendants slashed the tire in the parking lot of Citi Cash Services, Senior Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Walker said in her opening statement. Asia went into the mini-mart to get a couple of bottles of water while they waited for someone to help them change the tire, Walker said.
The defendants and so pounced, belongings them at gunpoint and demanding cash. Jackson stood by the driver'south side door while Tuli was at the passenger side and Griffin rummaged through the car'due south torso to try to find any valuables or cash, Walker said.
At some bespeak, Tuli ``panicked'' and shot Yousef in the head as he emerged from the machine,'' Walker said. Before that evening, Yousef ``had no idea what was in store for him,'' Walker said. ``He had absolutely no idea three men since the day before had a program to rob him.'' Walker showed video of the trigger-happy robbery to jurors and played a 911 call from a witness.
Walker said the investigation was hampered in office by the defendants fleeing and dumping some of the testify. Police found a trounce casing a day after the shooting, and only found cigarette butts that link Jackson and Griffin to the crime scene, but not Tuli. Investigators pieced together their movements from San Bernardino to Compton and then to Buena Park through cellphone GPS, Walker said. The evidence confronting Tuli includes statements he made under questioning with police and in a jailhouse telephone call to his wife., Walker said.
Asia was able to identify Jackson and Griffin in photo line-ups, only wasn't able to selection out Tuli the same manner. On ``Planning Day'' the solar day earlier the killing, Jackson and Tuli exchanged 12 calls and 48 text letters equally they went to Citi Greenbacks Services. On the day of the killing, they go with Jackson in his mother's auto to Orange County, Walker said.
Under questioning from law, Tuli said the robbery went s when Jackson started punching Yousef. As Yousef was attempting to get out of the machine, ``I panicked ... And I'yard standing right there,'' he told his wife, co-ordinate to Walker. Tuli'southward attorney, Jay Moorhead, said his client was a ``heavy'' methamphetamine user at the time and went to Compton the night earlier the murder. Moorhead indicated in that location was a ``third suspect'' at the shooting and emphasized at that place was no forensic evidence tying his client to the crime scene. Moorhead said Asia told law initially there were three Black suspects at the gas station, just so subsequently said the third human was Latino.
Jackson's attorney, Ed Welbourn, told jurors, ``This is a instance about determining who is responsible for the senseless murder of Maher Yousef.'' Welbourn said Tuli was the gunman and that ``He killed an innocent man.''
``There volition not be any evidence in this case that Mr. Jackson intended to impale Mr. Yousef,'' Welbourn said. Griffin'southward attorney, Kelly Rozek, said, ``This is non a whodunnit. They were all there, simply, unfortunately Jeffrey Tuli shot and killed Mr. Yousef in a sudden panic... It was a killing washed by 1 person and one person lone.'' She said her client did pull a gun on Asia, but then put it aside to go through the trunk while smoking a cigarette.
Source: https://kfiam640.iheart.com/content/2022-03-24-three-men-killed-in-gas-station-robbery-in-buena-park/
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