17-year sentence for Long Beach man in Halloween killings
The admitted getaway driver in one of city's worst mass shootings testified against others
A Long Beach man who admitted to being the getaway driver after one of the worst mass shootings in Long Beach history was sentenced to 17 years in state prison Tuesday, more than three months after he testified against five co-defendants as part of a plea agreement with prosecutors, authorities said.
Joshua Cardin Sam, 44, testified in October that he was among a group of eight men, all of whom planned and carried out the shooting, which killed three men and injured nine other people at a Halloween-themed birthday party at a house on Seventh Street in October 2019.
Sam pleaded no contest to three counts of voluntary manslaughter and three counts of attempted murder in April, prosecutors said during trial. Prosecutors offered Sam the 17year sentence as long as he testified truthfully during trial.
He was the last of eight men to be sentenced in connection with the shooting.
During sentencing, Judge Laura Laesecke told Sam that he “followed his end of the bargain,” but she hoped he would always be mindful of the devastation caused by the shooting because the trauma of the crime will “last a lot longer than 17 years.”
Nichole Vasquez, an injured victim who also spoke at the sentencing of the five defendants last week, said Tuesday she believed Sam's testimony was a “big step” toward justice for the lives lost.
Over three days in the second week of trial against Jeremy Penh, 29, David Long, 23, Kaylin Thik, 24, Ryan Sim, 22 and Grant Johnson, 39, Sam testified that Penh had called him over to an apartment complex in North Long Beach in the early evening hours, Oct. 29, 2019. There, Penh told the group of eight men that he believed rival gang members would be at a house party and that they were going to go there to “shut it down,” or shoot it up, Sam said.
He also identified Long,
Thik and Sim as the shooters. Johnson was in the passenger seat of Sam's PT Cruiser and yelled out the gang's name after the three men shot into the backyard, Sam said.
The five men were convicted in November and received multiple terms of life without parole at their sentencing hearing last week.
Sam testified his role was to park his PT Cruiser near the mouth of the alley where the shooting took place so he could collect the three shooters and drive them away to safety. Sam also admitted he was the one on surveillance video at a North Long Beach gas station paying for and pumping gas before the men all traveled in tandem from North Long Beach to the Rose Park neighborhood. Killed in the gunfire were Melvin Williams II, 35, of Gardena, Ricardo Torres, 28, of Inglewood and Maurice Poe Jr., 25, of Long Beach. Of the nine injured, a woman was left paralyzed from the chest down.
All eight men were arrested in September 2020.
During trial, defense attorneys attempted to cast doubt on Sam's credibility by calling out his criminal history, drug addiction and recorded calls to his mother and girlfriend, in particular, one moment in which he told his mom he had rehearsed what he was going to tell prosecutors with his attorney and others in which he told his girlfriend he had no idea the others in the group were going to shoot up the backyard.
Sam, who called himself an ex-gang member on the stand, testified that he used the wrong word when he said he rehearsed with his attorney. He also testified that he lied to his girlfriend at the time because he thought if she found out he knew about the shooting, she would leave him.
Sam also said one of the victims, Poe, was the son of a childhood friend and that Sam felt responsibility after learning he was one of the three men killed.
The last two defendants, 30-year-old Danny Sourn and 32-year-old Christopher Williams, had taken plea deals before trial and were already sentenced before trial.