Teens Equally Culpable, Says Tay Prosecutor : Trial: The opening statement places as much blame on youth who stood lookout as one who landed first blow in the killing.

The teen-ager who landed the first blow with a baseball bat and another teen who acted as a lookout are equally culpable in the New Year’s Eve 1992 murder of honors student Stuart A. Tay, a prosecutor told jurors Monday.

Abraham Acosta, 17, of Buena Park and Kirn Kim, 18, of Fullerton, face life in prison without parole if convicted of all charges. Three other teen-agers have already been convicted of murdering Tay after a planned computer heist went awry.

During his opening statement, Deputy Dist. Atty. Lewis R. Rosenblum repeated much of the evidence presented during an earlier trial for convicted ringleader Robert Chan, 19, also of Fullerton. Rosenblum told jurors that Acosta and Kim are guilty of premeditated murder.

“This is not some irresponsible, impulsive act, but a well-thought out and rehearsed plan to catch a victim by surprise,” Rosenblum told jurors.

Defense attorneys will have the chance to present their opening statements this morning in Orange County Superior Court.

Deputy Public Defender Denise Gragg is expected to tell jurors that Acosta is a mentally impaired youth who was easily manipulated by his fellow teens, while defense attorney Allan H. Stokke is expected to downplay the role of his client Kim, who did not participate in the bludgeoning. Under state law, however, Kim can be held equally responsible.

The case has gained widespread attention because the victim and most of the defendants seemed to be college-bound, ambitious students who came from loving, affluent families.

Chan, a one-time candidate for class valedictorian, faces life in prison without parole when he is sentenced this summer. Mun Bong Kang, 19, also of Fullerton, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and faces the same sentence.

While the four teens have been prosecuted as adults, a fifth defendant, Charles Choe, now 18, and also of Fullerton, was prosecuted as a juvenile after he agreed to testify against his former co-defendants. He is expected to be released from the California Youth Authority when he turns 25.

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The defendants attended Sunny Hills High School in Fullerton. Tay, 17, of Orange, was an honors student at Foothill High School in Santa Ana who had dreams of becoming a physician.

But Rosenblum told jurors Monday that Tay also had another side to him, one that was intrigued with crime and gangs. He liked to brag about involvement in spy networks and underworld activities, apparently to impress those around him, the prosecutor said.

“His interest in this got him into some trouble” after it led him to Chan, Rosenblum told jurors. “Getting involved with Robert Chan was the beginning of the end of Stuart’s life.”

Tay took on an alias and claimed he was much older when he sought out Chan. The two hatched a plan to rob an Anaheim computer-parts dealer and recruited the four other teens to carry out the scheme, the prosecutor said.

When Chan discovered Tay was lying about his age and name, Chan decided to kill Tay because he feared a double-cross, Rosenblum told jurors.

Tay was lured to Acosta’s garage, where Acosta and Chan beat him with baseball bats before forcing rubbing alcohol down his throat and taping shut the victim’s nose and mouth, Rosenblum said. Tay was then buried in a shallow grave that Acosta, Kim and Chan had dug the day before, he said.

Kim then drove Tay’s car to Compton, leaving the keys in the ignition in the hopes of misleading authorities into believing Tay was the victim of a carjacking, Rosenblum said. The teens used rubber gloves to hide fingerprints, cleaned up blood splatters in the garage and even used spray-on hair color to help disguise Kim’s appearance, he said.

Acosta was paid $100 for his role and went to Knott’s Berry Farm after burying Tay in his back yard, the prosecutor said.

Prior to opening statements, Orange County Superior Court Judge Kathleen E. O’Leary ruled that Acosta’s diminished mental capacity left him unable to understand his rights following his arrest, and ruled that incriminating statements he made to police would not be admissible during the trial.