Trial begins for 3 accused of El Sobrante bar murder
MARTINEZ >> Five years after an East Bay musician was severely beaten behind an El Sobrante bar, then gunned down out front by one of his alleged attackers, a murder trial has started for the three men charged in his death.
The trial for Ray Simons, 36, Daniel Ortega, 35, and Daniel Porter-Kelly, 35, started in mid-October but went on a two-week hiatus after two days. It resumed last week, with testimony from Ortega’s ex-girlfriend, who claims to have witnessed both the beating and the shooting but has never told the story the same way twice. Simons’ attorney has conceded that he was the shooter but insisted that Simons believed Sims was about to attack him.
The victim, Willie Sims, 28, was shot in the head, reportedly by Simons, after he staggered to the front of the bar and walked up to Simons’ car. Minutes earlier he had suffered a cracked skull and other critical injuries in the assault at the bar’s rear. The case was originally charged with a hate crime after it was revealed one of the three defendants used an expletive and a racial slur to refer to Sims, who is Black, but a grand jury rejected the hate crime enhancements to the murder charge in 2017.
At the start of the trial, prosecutor Aron DeFerrari described the events as one fluid act, linking the interactions between Sims and Porter-Kelly inside the bar, the subsequent beating behind the bar and the shooting out front. He said Sims was doing “harmless flirting” with two women Porter-Kelly was talking to, which annoyed Porter-Kelly enough to call him the racist slur and mockingly refer to Sims as “Urkel,” a reference to a Black character from a television show.
Behind the bar, Sims offered to buy cocaine from Simons but didn’t have money. While they were discussing a possible deal, the three defendants knocked Sims down, stomped him, and took his wallet, DeFerrari alleged.
The defenses vary for the three men on trial. PorterKelly’s attorney, Colin Cooper, has simply denied that his client did anything other than use the racial slur in a colloquial way, not intending to be racist. He denied that Porter-Kelly touched Sims during the beating and reminded jurors of something that DeFerrari conceded: PorterKelly was in his car, driving away from the bar when the shooting occurred.
Both Ortega and Simons’ lawyers downplayed their clients’ involvement in the beating. Ortega’s lawyer, Paul Feuerwerker, said prosecutors wouldn’t be able to prove Ortega did anything more than sit in the same car as Simons during the shooting. Simons’ attorney said at the end of trial he would ask for a verdict of manslaughter, not murder.
All three defense attorneys emphasized one point repeatedly: Ortega’s girlfriend, a key prosecution witness, lied about the incident numerous times. Cooper recounted how the woman initially denied any involvement to police, then admitted that after the shooting she and Ortega got a hotel in Pittsburg and spent the night using methamphetamine and “engaging in sexual interaction.” Feuerwerker showed jurors video of a hotel lobby where the woman appears to be acting casually and asked how someone could be so nonchalant after witnessing a homicide.
During his opening remarks, DeFerrari told jurors that it was a miracle that Sims was able to stand on his feet and walk to the front of the bar, and showed a picture of Sims’ bloody autopsy photo, drawing gasps from the packed gallery that included more than a dozen of Sims’ friends and family. He said Sims sensed he was in danger behind the bar and concocted a story about being from Compton and having a gun in his car in a desperate attempt to protect himself.
He said when Sims was shot, he had just slammed his hands on Simons’ car, possibly to get his wallet back. He said earlier in the evening, inside the bar, Simons had bragged about recently buying “a little guy,” which DeFerrari called a reference to a gun. His inference was clear: Ortega and PorterKelly must have known Simons was armed and therefore that initiating an assault could lead to murder.
But the defense had an explanation for the remark: Simons’ attorney, deputy public defender Michael Lepie, said Simons had recently gotten a puppy. And Feuerwerker said there was no way that the others could have heard Simons’ remark due to the loud music and chatter inside the bar.