Defendant Acquitted in Slaying Outside Bank

A 20-year-old South-Central Los Angeles man has been acquitted of shooting a Canoga Park man to death outside a Tarzana bank during a robbery.

A Van Nuys Superior Court jury deliberated less than two days before finding Quinal Johnson not guilty of the June 30, 1988, slaying of Raul Figueroa.

Because the killing occurred in the course of a robbery, prosecutors had been seeking a sentence of life in prison without possibility of parole. Instead, Johnson was released from custody after the verdict Monday.

“The jurors felt, as I did, that they prosecuted the wrong person,” said Johnson’s attorney, James H. Barnes, who characterized the evidence as “the weakest I’ve ever seen.”

Prosecutors had contended that Johnson was the gunman who shot Figueroa outside the Wells Fargo Bank at 18705 Ventura Blvd. after Figueroa refused to give him $400 he was about to deposit.

When Figueroa fell clutching the money, the gunman shot him once in the head at close range. Figueroa died a short time later.

Witnesses saw the gunman flee in a stolen car, which was found abandoned a few blocks from the bank. Fingerprints found on the car belonged to Johnson’s neighbor, Barnell Thomas, 20, who was arrested for the killing but was never charged. He later became the key prosecution witness against Johnson, who turned himself in after he learned police were seeking to question him.