Defendant says he tried to stop killing

Molly Ball

Friday, Oct. 15, 2004 | 9:30 a.m.

Jurors on Thursday heard Steven Perry talk about the killing of Benito Zambrano-Lopez in his own words.

Jurors Thursday watched a video and listened to a tape of statements Perry gave to police after Zambrano-Lopez, a 48-year-old laborer, was attacked on the street and shot last summer.

Perry, 18, known to his friends as "Little Mizz," first told the police that he knew nothing about the attack. A few days later he admitted that he was there, but claimed he tried to stop his friend from shooting the victim, police said.

Perry is the third person to be charged with murder for Zambrano-Lopez's death, which prosecutors say resulted from a robbery gone awry. Earlier this year, Tyrone "Ti Mizz" Williams and Julius Bradford were convicted in separate trials.

Perry and Williams were best friends, as evidenced by their matching nicknames, and Perry told police he changed his story because he initially was reluctant to hurt his "brother."

But after police told Perry that Williams was trying to blame him for the crime, Perry felt betrayed and was moved to tell the truth, he said.

"I'm the closest person to him -- I let him sleep in my house when he had nowhere to go," Perry said of Williams in a taped interview on June 14, 2003, six days after the attack.

"But give him the death penalty. Shoot him in the back. I love him, I'll always love him, but now I don't care what you do to him," Perry said.

Perry claimed that as the altercation with Zambrano-Lopez was happening, he was trying to stop it, and afterward he stayed behind to see if the victim was all right. Later, he said, he told Williams, "It wasn't necessary for you to shoot the dude -- he was old."

Perry also told police he respected Zambrano-Lopez for fighting back when the youths assailed him.

But prosecutor Giancarlo Pesci has emphasized that Perry also told police that "everybody pockets was hurting and nobody had much money" that day to show that Perry was part of a plot to commit a robbery.

Pesci also stressed Perry's apparent knowledge of his potential culpability for his involvement, even though Perry is not accused of having fired the gun.

"If I did know who did it I'd be -- what's that word when you're around and something happens?" Perry told detectives.

When detectives suggested the word "co-conspirator," Perry said, "Yeah."