Lake Worth man convicted of manslaughter in 2015 stabbing
Lawyer said killing was in self-defense; he faces 15 years.
A 26-year-old Lake Worth man faces up to 15 years in prison when he is sentenced next month in the stabbing death of a man he said he killed in self-defense.
Jurors on Friday ended Deivis Costa’s second degree murder trial by convicting him of a lesser manslaughter charge in connection with his Sept. 5, 2015, deadly altercation with 25-year-old Ariel Quintana Zamora.
According to arrest reports, Costa confronted Zamora, an acquaintance, after Zamora answered his knock on the door of a home in the 800 block of Selkirk Street in West Palm Beach. When Zamora stepped outside, a witness told police, the two began to argue and then started fighting.
“Why are you doing this?” a witness told police Zamora said as Costa stabbed him.
Costa’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender Melissa Anderson, argued during the trial that Costa acted in self-defense, saying that Zamora, of Palm Springs, had cocaine in his system at the time of the fight and had a record of violence. Assistant State Attorney Jill Richstone argued that although it wasn’t a premeditated killing, Costa committed murder.
Had the jury convicted him of the murder charge, Costa could have faced up to life in prison. Instead, he faces up to 15 years in prison when Circuit Judge Samantha Schosberg Feuer sentences him on Feb. 19.
Anderson announced in court records before the trial that she also planned to argue that Costa was suffering from Post Traumatic Stress Disorder at the time of the attack.
Before Costa moved to Florida, according to Anderson, he lived in Chicago and was a member of the Latin Kings gang and “was exposed to violence just about every single day, and these incidents caused him to have PTSD.”
Costa was previously arrested on grand theft and battery charges in Palm Beach County. In Illinois, he was arrested on burglary, drug possession and obstruction charges, according to Cook County Sheriff ’s Office records. He served a threeyear sentence in prison on the burglary charges, according to Cook County court records.
Costa served a three-year sentence on burglary charges.