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Travis Reid was annoyed. Three packages of money the Baltimore drug seller had mailed to his cocaine provider in Los Angeles had gone lacking.
Out $377,000, Reid thought the provider, Gary Davidson, was dishonest him. “I used to be taking part in truthful with y’all,” one among Reid’s associates recalled him saying. Davidson, the affiliate added, “wasn’t taking part in truthful.”
Reid’s reply was to lure Davidson right into a drug deal, execute him and steal 10 kilograms of cocaine to recoup his losses, Deputy Dist. Atty. Victor Avila informed jurors on Monday in closing arguments at a trial for homicide and tried theft costs in opposition to Reid and a co-defendant.
Killed alongside Davidson, 39, in his Porter Ranch dwelling the afternoon of Feb. 18, 2019, have been Jesus Perez, 34, and Benito Vasquez Lopez, 46. Perez and Vasquez Lopez, who provided the cocaine that Davidson thought he’d be promoting to Reid, have been gunned down as a result of they have been witnesses, Avila argued.
“It doesn’t get extra violent, extra private, than the best way they died,” he mentioned.
An legal professional for Reid, 44, conceded his shopper offered medication and acknowledged he was on the scene of the crime, however argued it was an unidentified man from Davidson’s violent milieu who killed him.
“That is the drug sport,” the legal professional, Tony Garcia, informed jurors. “Everyone’s obtained weapons.”
Avila mentioned that in 2017 the U.S. Postal Service started seizing kilograms of cocaine mailed from Chatsworth and Northridge to places in Maryland and Pennsylvania. Postal inspectors additionally intercepted shipments of cash mailed from Owings Mill, Md., a suburb of Baltimore, to the San Fernando Valley. Over a three-day interval in 2018, Reid misplaced three packages of money, totaling $377,000, Avila mentioned.
Gregory Palmer, a street-level seller in Baltimore who purchased cocaine from Reid, testified that Reid blamed somebody named Gary for $450,000 to $600,000 in losses. Reid mentioned he wanted weapons and silencers, in accordance with Palmer, who testified in change for leniency on theft costs.
Prosecutors mentioned Reid recruited a childhood buddy, Kenneth Peterson, 45, to construct the silencers. They offered information displaying that Peterson, who lived in Durham, N.C., purchased silencer parts on-line and researched subsonic ammunition, which is quieter than normal rounds.
Conscious that Davidson lived in a gated group, Reid knew he wanted to kill him with out making a whole lot of noise, Avila argued to the jury. If neighbors heard the pictures, he’d by no means have the ability to escape.
Palmer testified he drove two handguns and two silencers in a rented Chrysler Pacifica minivan from Baltimore to Los Angeles, a drive that took two and a half days. He met Reid and Peterson at a Travelodge motel in Burbank, the place they’d rented two rooms after flying into LAX. In accordance with Palmer, Reid and Peterson placed on latex gloves earlier than loading the weapons and becoming them with the silencers, which have been home made and usual from the tube-shaped handles of flashlights.
The following day, Reid and Peterson checked out of one among their rooms. A housekeeper discovered three stay rounds of subsonic ammunition on the ground, together with blue latex gloves, Avila mentioned. The supervisor referred to as the police.
Reid and Peterson met Davidson at a shopping mall in Northridge that afternoon. Believing he was going to promote Reid some cocaine, Davidson organized for his suppliers, Perez and Vasquez Lopez, to deliver the product to his dwelling in Porter Ranch’s Renaissance gated group, Avila mentioned.
Surveillance footage confirmed Davidson driving a Dodge minivan that Reid had rented by way of the complicated’s safety gate at 2:34 p.m., with Peterson beside him. Reid adopted in Davidson’s Honda Accord.
Solely the minivan would exit, 19 minutes later.
Avila mentioned that based mostly on the place of the our bodies and different proof contained in the two-story, five-bedroom dwelling, Davidson most likely went right into a bed room with Reid to make what he thought can be the change. He died carrying the latex gloves he sometimes wore throughout drug offers, Avila mentioned.
Whereas Reid killed Davidson, Peterson held Perez and Vasquez Lopez at gunpoint in one other room, the prosecutor argued. A lady who’d been sleeping upstairs heard a number of “popping sounds” and the noise of males screaming, Avila mentioned.
All three males have been shot within the head and chest. The home was plagued by casings from subsonic ammunition of the identical model recovered from the motel room, Avila mentioned.
“It’s all concerning the cash,” he argued. “It’s all concerning the medication. Anybody who will get in the best way, they’re accomplished.”
Surveillance footage from the Travelodge confirmed Reid and Peterson return to the motel, the place a Burbank police cruiser was parked exterior. An officer was contained in the supervisor’s workplace, amassing the ammunition seized from their room.
Within the storage of Davidson’s dwelling, police discovered 2 kilograms of cocaine stamped with a “CAT” emblem that resembled one discovered on Caterpiller model heavy gear. They found 5 extra kilograms within the Toyota Camry that Perez and Vasquez Lopez had pushed.
Avila argued that Reid and Peterson stole a few of the cocaine and shipped it again to Maryland, displaying the jury a video filmed by one among Reid’s street-level prospects that exhibits a brick of cocaine stamped with the CAT emblem.
Peterson’s legal professional, Janae Torrez, argued that past his friendship with Reid, her shopper had no connection to the drug commerce and its net of provide networks and violent males.
“Kenneth has nothing to do with this — nothing to do with this world, nothing to do with this intricacy of how issues are shifting,” she mentioned.
Reid’s lawyer mentioned nobody however Palmer, a avenue seller who was motivated to deceive lighten his jail sentence, described a dispute between his shopper and Davidson.
Garcia mentioned that as a result of the cash seized by the Postal Service was Davidson’s — Reid was paying him for cocaine that had been prolonged on credit score — it ought to have been Davidson who felt cheated by the losses, not Reid.
“We don’t know who pulled the set off,” he insisted.
Closing arguments will proceed Tuesday.
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