Pot store owner, manager guilty of murder

Jury convicts two men of killing a dispensary worker and burying the body in 2020.

A jury in Los Angeles has convicted the owner and the manager of a marijuana dispensary of murdering a 21-year-old college student who was an employee at the business.

Video recovered by police showed the manager, Ethan Kedar Astaphan, choking the employee, Juan Carlos Hernandez, inside the dispensary on the night of Sept. 22, 2020.

Weijia Peng, the dispensary’s owner, could be seen in the video closing the back door of the shop, then watching as Hernandez’s body went still.

Last week, a jury in Los Angeles County Superior Court convicted Astaphan and Peng of first-degree murder.

Attorneys for Astaphan and Peng did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

A student at El Camino College, Hernandez was paid under the table for his work at the dispensary, VIP Collective LA. He was using the funds to cover the cost of tuition and a potential transfer to USC.

But the 21-year-old disappeared Sept. 23, 2020, prompting a frantic search by his family that spanned most of Southern California.

Two months after his disappearance, police located his body buried in the Mojave Desert.

Jurors deliberated for less than three hours, the Los Angeles Daily News reported.

The marijuana dispensary was located in the 8100 block of Western Avenue. Hernandez had worked there for about six months.

During the trial, prosecutors asserted that Peng and Astaphan suspected Hernandez of stealing money and marijuana from the dispensary. The prosecutors cited WhatsApp messages exchanged by the two defendants.

Video showed Astaphan attacking Hernandez and Peng injecting the 21-yearold with a fatal dose of ketamine, prosecutors said.

The two then took the body to the desert.

They were arrested two months later, after law enforcement recovered deleted surveillance video from the dispensary showing the attack.

A sentencing hearing has been scheduled for April 25, according to court records.