Man convicted in café shootings
Jason Hay found guilty of first-degree murder in deaths of two people
A Malton man has been found guilty of two counts of firstdegree murder in a shooting rampage at Woodbridge’s Moka Cafe that left two people dead and two others injured.
Jason Hay was convicted of the slaying of Maria Voci, 47, and Christopher DeSimone, 24, both of Vaughan, in mid-May after a month-long trial recalled the events of June 24, 2015, when the café filled with gunshots.
He was also convicted of the attempted murder of local Vaughan businessman Rocco Di Paola and his cousin Gaetano Di Pietro, 48.
This is not the first conviction Hay has on his record. In 2009, the 30-year-old was convicted of manslaughter in the case of David Latchana. However, the jury was unaware of his record of criminality during the trial.
The video shown at the outset of the Newmarket court was a gruesome one.
It begins showing a man wearing a mask and grey hoodie walking into the cafe. Di Pietro, whose name has been kept secret by police until now, told the court the man came in yelling “Where’s my money?”
Remaining seemingly calm in the video — despite testifying that he saw a gun in the man’s hand when he entered the cafe — Di Pietro added that everyone “looked at each other dumbfounded,” not understanding what the man was talking about. “From my perspective it wasn’t directed at anyone in the café, my assumption was he’s looking for someone ... he’s not here, he’ll leave,” he said. “That’s why I didn’t panic, I thought he would leave.”
Instead, the video shows the man going to the cafe’s backroom, eventually returning, speaking briefly and then squeezing off 11 shots. At one point he reaches over the counter, appearing to specifically target Maria Voci, who was making Di Pietro a cafe latte.
Di Pietro said he initially thought the man was firing “fake bullets” until he realized he’d been hit. “I found out later, (a bullet) entered through my neck and miraculously left my shoulder,” he added.
The video then showed the man leaving in a stolen, black Nissan Versa, joining Vaughan’s morning rush hour traffic on Islington Ave.
The first 911 call heard in court features a relatively calm, but clearly disoriented Di Pietro telling police about what had just occurred. Crown attorney Lee-Anne McCallum told the court that hours after the incident, at 11:32 p.m. that same day, a vehicle she said resembles the Nissan is shown on surveillance video pulling into an industrial area near 67 Westmore Dr., in Etobicoke, where the car would eventually be located by a Toronto police enforcement officer on July 1.
Video evidence also included footage of a man dressed in a Blue Jays hat getting out of the black Nissan and walking by the Moka Cafe the day before the incident. A man the Crown purported to be Hay.
The defence’s position was that the man in the shooting video and the man seen casing the cafe is not Hay.
Hay’s next hearing is July 4 when the Crown and defence will discuss his sentencing.