Family seeks answers in man’s death at bar in gambling capital

John Curran

Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2002 | 9:26 a.m.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. -- It was a bachelor party that ended in tragedy. Now, the family of Peter Westra is worried someone will get away with murder.

Westra, 24, a native of Dellwood, Minn., and 1999 graduate of Middlebury (Vt.) College, worked in the real estate investment banking arm of Deutsche Banc in New York.

He had joined 12 friends for a weekend's worth of bachelor revelry in the regional casino capital of Atlantic City.

On a summer Saturday night last year, they piled into Naked City, a neon-emblazoned strip club steps from the city's world-famous Boardwalk.

After calling ahead to make a reservation, the group -- including Westra, friends Peter Steinberg and groom-to-be Bradley Maxwell and nine others -- planned to spend two hours drinking at an open bar and watching dancers.

By 4 a.m., one man had gotten sick and been taken back to his hotel.

Westra, meanwhile, was in trouble: Chastised for allegedly touching dancers, he was ejected by bouncer Tamer Shahid. Shahid, testifying in his murder trial, said Westra refused to leave and grabbed a broken beer bottle.

Thrown out onto the sidewalk, Westra tried to force his way back in, but was met with a surge of club employees who knocked him down, according to witnesses.

Then, Shahid and four others allegedly kicked him to death as Steinberg tried to use his body to shield Westra.

Shahid, 26, was tried for murder, but a jury was hung on that charge Tuesday, voting instead to convict him of aggravated assault and conspiracy.

A judge refused to enter the verdicts, however, because the state wants to try Shahid again for murder and a conviction could expose him to double jeopardy, trying him twice for the same crime.

Four others who allegedly participated in the killing are awaiting trial, but they are charged with aggravated assault, not homicide.

The verdict left Westra's family -- who had traveled from Minnesota to attend the two-week-long trial -- still hurting, still searching for answers.

Each day, Mark and Mary Westra and daughters Ann Westra, 27, and Carolyn Westra, 21, watched from the front row of the gallery as witnesses testified about the melee, the beating and the graphic details of Westra's head injuries.

"Listening to Tamer, nothing he said had anything to do with Peter," Mark Westra, the victim's father, said. "He wasn't the type to get into fights, provoke people or act irresponsibly. He was a friendly, garrulous young man who always wanted people to like him."

Shahid, who remains held on $350,000 bail, could get 10 years in prison if convicted on the aggravated assault charge.

In Atlantic City, the case drew comparisons to the 1988 death of an unruly gambler. In September 2000, a former Trump Plaza security guard was sentenced to seven years in the beating death of the gambler. Witnesses said the 6-foot-1 inch, 240-pound guard threw the 5-foot-1 inch gambler into a door and kicked him after catching him panhandling and trying to steal chips in the casino. He died of a spinal injury.