Jury deliberations begin in Cathedral City drug murder trial
On Wednesday jurors began deliberating the fate of a 22-year-old ex-con accused of fatally shooting a man during a botched robbery over $50 worth of marijuana.
Jacob Paul Winters of Cathedral City is charged with murder, with special circumstance allegations of committing murder in commission of a robbery and being a convicted felon in possession of a firearm.
Prosecutors decided against pursuing the death penalty, meaning Winters faces life imprisonment without the possibility of parole should jurors convict him of murder and find true the special circumstance allegations.
Winters is accused of killing Hector Perez, 21, who was found sitting in his car at 12:53 a.m. March 21 near the area of Baristo Road and Date Palm Drive, according to Cathedral City police Lt. Glen Haas. Perez, who had been shot in the upper body, was conscious when rescuers arrived but died of his wounds at Desert Regional Medical Center about an hour later.
Deputy District Attorney Manny Bustamante said Perez was called to the parking lot of a Sonic Drive-In restaurant in Cathedral City to sell marijuana to a woman. However, when he and a friend reached the scene, they saw two men — not the woman who called Perez, the prosecutor said.
Bustamante alleged that Winters leveled a rifle at Perez’s friend while an accomplice, who is unidentified and still at large, reached through the driver’s side window to take Perez’s keys out of the ignition. Perez then tried
to move the rifle barrel away from his friend’s face, prompting Winters to
shoot him, the prosecutor said.
“It was a simple plan, with a simple motive, that suddenly went horribly wrong,” Bustamante said.
Perez sped off from the parking lot to the area of Baristo Road and Date Palm Drive, where police found him after his friend called 911. Winters was arrested three days after the shooting at his home on Avenida Quintana. He told police that he was sleeping at his mother’s home in Desert Hot Springs on the night of the shooting.
Winters’ attorney, Arnold Lieman, told jurors in his closing argument Wednesday that Perez’s friend was mistaken in his identification of Winters as the shooter. Lieman said the entire robbery occurred in less than a minute and Perez’s friend likely didn’t get an accurate look at the suspect in that timespan.
Lieman argued that Perez’s friend showed he was mistaken when he initially told police he didn’t know who the shooter was, and did not properly describe Winters’ facial hair or tattoos, despite being right next to him
during the shooting.
He later picked Winters out of a photographic line-up, according to the prosecutor’s trial brief.
Bustamante demonstrated how long Perez’s friend had to identify Winters by standing in front of the jury box without speaking for just over 30 seconds, then saying it was more than enough time to identify someone, especially considering Perez’s friend and Winters knew each other from school and through other acquaintances.
Bustamante also told the jury that Perez’s friend did not immediately identify Winters because he feared retaliation for talking to police about the murder. Perez’s friend was also able to describe clothes Winters was wearing during the robbery, which were later found during a search of his home, according to the prosecutor.
Lieman argued that the robbery motive made no sense, as Winters and his alleged accomplice would not need to rob Perez to get marijuana. Winters was known to sell marijuana and testified to that during the trial, Lieman said.
Bustamante countered that they “weren’t looking to buy (marijuana.) They were looking to take what wasn’t theirs.”
According to court records, Winters has a prior felony conviction for selling marijuana and was given three years probation in January.
