Arguments End in Encino Party Murder Trial

Saying gang pride was the motive, a prosecutor urged a Van Nuys jury Thursday to find Ari Tomasian guilty of the murder of a youth at a teen party in Encino.

The closing arguments in Los Angeles Superior Court, which included references to the Rampart police scandal, capped three weeks of testimony in the first-degree murder trial for the 1998 death of 17-year-old Abtin Tangestanifar.

As Tomasian attacked Tangestanifar outside the party, witnesses testified, they heard him shout “Jefrox!” In a dramatic moment in the trial, Tomasian was asked to bare his back, exposing a large tattoo bearing the name of the multiethnic gang.

“That’s who he is--he’s Jefrox. That’s why he’s guilty of first degree murder,” said Deputy Dist. Atty. Darrell Mavis.

But defense attorney Melvyn Douglas Sacks told jurors that there is evidence that another youth, not Tomasian, wielded the murder weapon.

Tomasian, now 19, may have been affiliated with Jefrox, but he wasn’t the killer, said Sacks, urging the jury of eight women and four men not to be swayed by “prejudice” against gang members.

Sacks called several witnesses who testified against his client liars, and said the finding of the victim’s blood on his client’s jacket proves nothing.

Sacks invoked the Rampart scandal at least twice, asserting it shows how sentiments against gang members could lead to mistaken convictions.

Judge Tricia A. Bigelow stopped Sacks, however, and called the two attorneys to confer in private. After they returned to the courtroom, she told the jury to consider only the evidence presented during trial.

“There is no evidence anyone is involved with Rampart in this case,” the judge said.

Prosecution witnesses included the girl who had invited Tomasian to the ill-fated “Sweet 16” party in the wealthy neighborhood in the Encino hills.

Through tears, Taline Kevonian told how she heard another youth say that Tomasian had bragged about stabbing Tangestanifar. For her cooperation with authorities, she has been labeled a “traitor” by people once close to her, Mavis said.

Another boy testified that he saw “something pointy” in Tomasian’s hand as he beat up the victim, Mavis said. But Sacks told jurors that a different witness saw another youth with a knife before the party. “While my client engaged in a fight, he used his fist and feet. That’s not what killed Abtin. A knife killed Abtin.”

The jacket stained with the victim’s blood proves Tomasian was the one who stabbed him, the prosecutor said.

But the blood could have gotten on Tomasian’s jacket because Tangestanifar “had a bloody nose” or “was spitting up blood,” Sacks said.

Of the six defendants originally arrested on suspicion of Tangestanifar’s murder, two were exonerated during a preliminary hearing. Another defendant was convicted of assault in Juvenile Court. Two have pleaded no contest to manslaughter charges.