Lynn gang trial nears a verdict

SALEM – Jurors in the Jose Cabrera trial, charged with the fatal shooting death of a rival gang member on Halloween night 2008 in Lynn, deliberated for about two and one-half hours without reaching a verdict Tuesday.Judge David A. Lowy sent the 12-person jury comprised of six women and six men home for the evening Tuesday at 4 p.m., ordering them to return this morning at 9 a.m. to continue with their deliberations in Salem Superior Court.Cabrera, 20, who last lived at 3 Chestnut St. in Lynn, never testified in his own defense. He is charged with murdering Tony Pich, 22, who was gunned down in front of his home at 1-3 Olive St. in the early hours of Nov. 1, 2008.Pich sustained a single bullet wound from a .357 revolver that struck him in the left side, causing massive internal bleeding and organ malfunction. The weapon used in the incident was never recovered by authorities.Prosecutors maintain the incident was a rival gang-bang incident that killed Pich, who was a member of the AKC (Avenue King Crips), and Cabrera, a reported member of the Deuce Boyz/Soldiers gang, but Cabrera has denied his involvement with the gang.Witnesses said they saw Cabrera, inside a silver Kia, shoot out the window of the car, fatally wounding Pich.”The defendant may very well have had no animosity for Tony Pich. The evidence shows that the defendant murdered Tony Pich because of what he represented that night,” Kristen R. Buxton said to the jury in her closing summation.”It doesn’t matter if he (Cabrera) officially belonged to a gang. What matters is he had an allegiance to that group. He did it deliberately. He did it with malice. The commonwealth is standing before you saying he is the shooter. He is guilty of the murder with an absolute certainty,” Buxton emphasized to the jurors.But defense lawyer Jeffrey T. Karp argued that the commonwealth “has the wrong guy.”He reminded the jury that a witness had identified the shooter as having long poufy hair and that the “hair does not fit the man.”Karp went on to explain to the jury that the government must convince you with a “moral certainty. When three hard working detectives saw him, they said he was a gentleman. He was polite. He was forthcoming and he was respectable.”He emphasized to the jury to use “your common sense saying he (Cabrera) did not kill Tony Pich.”Cabrera, was 18 when the incident occurred. If convicted of first-degree murder, he will spend the rest of his life behind bars.His mother, Anna, 46, collapsed Monday in court suffering from a seizure and remained at Salem Hospital for the night and had not yet been released when the court began on Tuesday.The jury has four options as it deliberates:u Find Cabrera innocent;u Find him guilty of first-degree murder, a killing that deliberate and premeditated.u Find him guilty of second-degree murder, a killing that is not pre-meditated;u Find him guilty of involuntary manslaughter, the taking of a life without malice or premeditation.