Man convicted of partygoer murder; jury deadlocks on hate crime

A Riverside County jury on Thursday convicted a 22-year-old man of first-degree murder in the shooting death of a Moreno Valley partygoer but deadlocked on a sentencing enhancement that alleged the assailant committed a racially motivated hate crime.

The six-woman, six-man jury did find true the sentencing enhancements allegations that Darren

Peter Zesk laid in wait and discharged a firearm causing great bodily injury. Several of his supporters in the gallery wept during the reading of the verdicts. Zesk faces a maximum sentence of life in prison without parole when he is sentenced on Aug. 25 at the Riverside County Hall of Justice in Riverside for the death of Massai Cole, 19. District Attorney

Mike Hestrin did not seek the death penalty even though Zesk was eligible because of the special circumstances allegations.

“The verdict was fair enough, but we are waiting to see how the sentencing goes,” Cole's grandfather, Melvin Ware, said after the verdict was read. “I don't want him to touch the streets again.”

Ware described his grandson, a 2019 graduate of Ventura High, as a gregarious and popular aspiring rapper.

The slaying happened on Feb. 1, 2020, at a home in the 16500 block of Century Street in Moreno Valley. According to testimony to the grand jury, Zesk and his nephew, Jared Lee Zesk, left the party after Jared lost a fight but later returned. Prosecutors told the grand jury that two others — a White person and a person of unknown race — were involved in the fight but that the Zesks, who are White, focused on a Black man, Cole.

Prosecutors said Darren Zesk lured Cole outside and shot him three times while Jared Zesk fired a gun into the air.

Grand jurors were told that Darren Zesk's cellphone contained files with racial slurs about Black people as well as the phrases “white power,” and “Heil Hitler,” a transcript of testimony shows.

Darren Zesk's attorney, Darryl Exum, was successful in having

Cole