Third man convicted in robbery, killing

Molly Ball

Monday, Oct. 18, 2004 | 10:44 a.m.

The third man to be tried for the killing of Benito Zambrano-Lopez last summer was found guilty Friday after a weeklong trial.

Steven "Little Mizz" Perry, 18, was convicted of first-degree murder with a deadly weapon and attempted robbery for the killing of Zambrano-Lopez, who was walking home from a neighborhood market when he was attacked on June 8, 2003.

The prosecutor, Chief Deputy District Attorney Giancarlo Pesci, said Perry and two friends, Tyrone Williams and Julius Bradford, conspired to rob the 48-year-old laborer, then shot him repeatedly when he resisted.

Williams and Bradford were tried and convicted earlier this year.

Perry's lawyer, Ivette Maningo, argued that Perry was merely an onlooker to his friends' crime, pointing to the youth's statements to police that he didn't know Williams was going to shoot the victim and tried to help Zambrano-Lopez after the shooting.

But Pesci pointed to Perry's statements that "everybody's pockets was hurting" and "I was looking to get my bread stacked" to argue that Perry was part of the robbery plot and thus responsible for what happened when it got out of hand.

Zambrano-Lopez, Pesci told the jury, "was just walking down the street, ladies and gentlemen. But unfortunately for him, the defendant's pockets were light. Because of that, he's dead."