By Khalida Sarwari
A Santa Clara County Superior Court jury heard opening statements and testimony today in the trial of a Gilroy man accused of killing 27-year-old Philip Lacy during a robbery in downtown Palo Alto in July 2008.
Otto Emil Koloto, 23, has been charged with murder for the death of Lacy, a South San Francisco resident, who was shot in the forehead near City Hall early the morning of July 13, 2008.
Koloto also faces an enhancement for use of a firearm during the commission of a felony.
Prosecutor Matt Braker and defense attorney Andy Gutierrez made their opening statements after jury selection wrapped up late this morning in a San Jose courtroom. The jury consists of eight women and four men, with two women chosen as alternate jurors.
Braker claimed in his opening statement that circumstantial evidence shows Koloto shot Lacy during a robbery.
Gutierrez urged the jury to keep an open mind.
“The evidence will show that this was not a random and opportunistic act of murder,” Gutierrez said.
Braker said a bullet casing found near Lacy’s body matched a casing police found at a home where Koloto had attended a party earlier that night during which he had allegedly fired his semi-automatic pistol. Braker also displayed Koloto’s driver’s license, which he said was found near the spot where Lacy was killed.
Several witnesses testified today, including Farmarz Maleki, 29, of San Mateo, who told jurors that he had been with Lacy the evening of July 12, 2008, and early on the morning of July 13, when the shooting occurred.
Maleki, a childhood friend of Lacy’s, said the two attended basketball camp together at age 10, and that their friendship had been strong since high school.
On the night Lacy was shot, Maleki, Lacy and a group of friends had briefly gone to the bar Glow in San Mateo, then headed to the Blue Chalk Cafe, a bar on Ramona Avenue in Palo Alto where they stayed until about 1:30 a.m., Maleki said.
At the end of the evening, Maleki said, the men left the bar separately. Maleki retrieved his gold Lexus and drove out of a parking garage adjacent to City Hall and onto Bryant Street, where he parked along a curb to wait for Lacy and their other friends.
The men eventually got into the car and were preparing to leave when a man with black, bushy hair and brown eyes wearing a black hooded sweatshirt and black beanie approached the car and asked them for a cigarette.
Maleki identified the man as Koloto.
He said he passed a cigarette to Lacy, who gave it to the man. The man then took a gun out of his front pocket, cocked it and pointed it at Lacy.
He ordered Lacy, who was wearing a gold chain necklace with a diamond-encrusted cross, to hand it to him, saying, “Give me your chain, bitch,” Maleki said.
Maleki said Lacy turned to him and shook his head briefly before taking off the gold chain and handing it to the gunman.
However, just after handing over his necklace, Maleki said, Lacy flew out of his seat and attacked the gunman full force, ramming his head into the gunman’s chest and wrapping his arms around him.
The two men tussled briefly and then the man raised the gun, pointed it at Lacy’s head and fired, Maleki said.
Lacy’s eyes closed and he slumped to the ground, Maleki said.
Maleki said he was initially in a state of shock after Lacy was shot. He said he exited his car and lay down in the road next to his car before rising and alerting a nearby police officer about what had happened.
That officer was Anthony Becker, who testified today that he was on patrol that evening when he heard a shot fired and then a man in his early 20s ran up to him and told him that his friend had been shot in the head.
He found Lacy and called a medic for help. Becker described the men around Lacy as “hostile, angry and distraught.”
Palo Alto police Sgt. Wayne Benitez, who was also patrolling downtown that evening, told the jury he heard a bang then seconds later noticed a car driving through a red light with its headlights off.
Benitez said he heard screams coming from the Civic Center parking garage near City Hall. He headed there and found a man screaming that he had just watched his “friend’s brains get blown out.”
Benitez said he tried giving Lacy artificial respiration, but that Lacy was bleeding profusely from his head.
Testimony for the prosecution will continue on Wednesday.