WITNESS REFUSES TO TESTIFY AGAINST VARGAS One of the witnesses, who allegedly overheard Vargas admitting to Carter’s murder, refused to take the stand on Monday. enough evidence to merit a trial.
Vargas was being detained at a juvenile detention facility in Sylmar on April 7, where he was awaiting trial for the rape charges when Santa police detectives arrested him for Carter’s murder.
Carter, 19, was shot in the back with a.22-caliber gun in the 1800 block of 20th Street while he was walking through an alley on Sept. 2, 2003. Police believe the shooting occurred at 5:41 p.m. The bullet pierced Carter’s heart, and he died a few hours later at a local hospital. It was the only homicide in Santa Monica that year.
Shortly after, police arrested a neighbor in connection with the murder, but the DA’s office dropped the charges due to a lack of evidence.
Carter is described by family and friends as a hard-working young man who was studying for a career in computers while working two jobs.
According to the DA’s office, Vargas is being tried as an adult on both the rape and murder charges. The fact he will likely be tried for both crimes at the same time is coincidence, prosecutors said, since the rape case was postponed by Vargas’ defense attorney.
Testimony from the victim of the alleged rape was heard in a closed court session on Monday morning. During the afternoon, the murder case was heard.
Vargas appeared in court with a shaved head. He wore a blue L.A. County Jail jumpsuit. During the proceedings, he sat next to his attorney and occasionally clicked a pen and glanced back at his mother, and a dozen family and friends who had come to support him.
At approximately 2:35 p.m., a middle-aged woman could be heard crying and shouting in a room behind the court. For several minutes, the witness, pregnant, refused to take the stand.
By 2:40 p.m., Judge Dabney shouted, “bring her in, now” and a Santa Monica detective ushered the witness inside the courtroom.
“Belinda, help me,” the woman cried, calling on Vargas’ mother from the witness stand. “They’re making me do this. They tell me if I don’t I’m going to be arrested.”
The witness refused to answer questions from prosecutors. She claimed she didn’t know Vargas and didn’t know anything about Carter’s murder.
By 2:50 p.m., the witness was dismissed, while Deputy District Attorney Larry Droeger reserved the right to bring her back in for further testimony.
“I’m going to sue you, pigs,” she said to Droeger, crying, as she was escorted outside the courtroom.
Prosecutors procured a video tape for the court and submitted it for evidence. The tape is an alleged interview which took place in January. Santa Monica Police Detective John Henry told the court that in the video tape, the witness described how she overheard Vargas tell her step-daughter and step-son that he killed Carter because of his involvement with a rival gang.
OTHER WITNESSES TESTIFY Another witnesses, a 19-year old woman, testified that she was driving Vargas and his girlfriend on the day of the murder along 20th Street at approximately 3 p.m. She claimed Vargas may have shouted “junk” to someone outside the window, or might have made another sound she couldn’t distinguish. “Junk,” or “junk-yards,” she explained, was a derogatory reference to the Graveyard Crips, a street gang supposedly at odds with Santa Monica’s 17th Street gang, to which police believed Vargas was a member.
Vargas requested the witness stop her vehicle. She did, Vargas departed, and he called for a ride 15 minutes later, she testified.
The witness said she and Vargas’ girl-friend returned to the location 15 minutes later where they had dropped off Vargas previously. They picked him up at 3:15 p.m. at the same location, which was close to the murder scene. Inside the car, Vargas handed his girlfriend an item covered in a bandana. The next day, the girl-friend showed the witness a handgun tucked inside the bandana.
Droeger argued that the handgun was a.22 caliber Rutger, the same weapon that had been used in Carter’s murder.
Sheldon L. Levitin, Vargas’ attorney, noted in his cross examination that the timing in which Vargas was dropped off and picked up — during which he allegedly committed the murder — was hours earlier than when police say the shooting occurred.
The gun Vargas’ girlfriend allegedly kept for him was soon sold to another witness, a drug dealer, who told the court on Monday he needed it for protection. However, having learned the gun was “hot” from Vargas’ girlfriend, the drug dealer sold it to another friend, who put it in the trunk of his car, near the spare tire, he testified. That car was subsequently impounded for unrelated matters, then sold twice.
Santa Monica detectives heard from the gun’s last known owner that it may still have been inside the car. Detectives told the court that the owner agreed to let them search the car earlier this year. The gun was found.
Prosecutors said an expert analyzed the shells found at Carter’s murder scene and determined the gun was the same one used in the shooting.
Ramos said the prosecution’s efforts were wrong and noted how shamefully it made the criminal justice system look that a witness allegedly had to be threatened in order for her to agree to testify.
Vargas, who lives in the Pico neighborhood, is described by family and friends as respectful and mild-mannered. When Judge Dabney asked Vargas if it were OK to finish the preliminary hearing on Wednesday, Vargas, soft-spoken, told the judge, “Yes, sir.”
Carter’s mother and father, also present for the preliminary hearing, declined to comment on the case.
Originally published in the Santa Monica Daily Press print edition on September 20, 2005. Read the original PDF.