Attorneys Make Final Arguments in Simas Murder Trial

An attorney for 24-year-old Hollywood chef Ryan Simas urged a Ventura County judge Thursday to acquit his client of murder charges, saying prosecutors have failed to prove Simas played any role in the 1993 slaying of a Ventura High School student.

But prosecutors argued that while Simas was not the actual killer, he should still be found guilty of murder for participating in a street fight that led to the slaying of 17-year-old Jesse Strobel.

“We have a kid who is walking down the street, minding his own business and he is confronted by six people with bad intentions,” Deputy Dist. Atty. Richard Simon said. “The natural and probable consequences are that someone might get killed.”

The closing arguments capped a three-week nonjury trial before Ventura County Juvenile Court Judge Brian Back, who is expected to issue a verdict Monday.

Simas, who lives in Los Angeles and is a chef at Spago restaurant, faces fewer than eight months in state custody if convicted, because juvenile offenders cannot be held past age 25. He would also have a felony strike on his record.

Simas’ trial began seven years after the slaying of Strobel, a popular football player whose death stunned the community.

Strobel was fatally stabbed in the chest after being attacked by a carload of teenagers while walking home from his father’s pizzeria in the Pierpont section of Ventura on Jan. 29, 1993.

A 23-year-old Santa Paula gang member, Jose “Pepe” Castillo, later admitted stabbing Strobel. He pleaded guilty to murder last summer.

But prosecutors continued to go after Simas, whom they say participated in the fight, drove the getaway car and later lied to police to throw the homicide investigation off track.

Earlier this year, officials charged Simas with murder and a special allegation that the slaying occurred during a robbery attempt. Because Simas was 16 at the time, the trial was sent to Juvenile Court.

On Thursday, defense lawyer Richard Millard criticized prosecutors for bringing charges against his client and suggested Simas had become a “scapegoat” for police who failed for six years to crack the Strobel case.

Millard said the evidence against Simas is thin, based entirely on speculation and unreliable witnesses.

“There are so many people sitting in the back of the car watching Ryan Simas beat up Jesse Strobel that I’m surprised the front wheels of the car didn’t come off the ground,” Millard said, citing the inconsistent statements of two teenagers who were riding in Simas’ car that night.

Both witnesses, who were granted immunity from prosecution, minimized their own roles in the altercation and said Simas participated in the fight. One witness testified that he saw Simas grab Strobel by the arm and swing him around early in the fight.

Millard argued that wasn’t enough to prove murder.

But Simon told the judge that Simas wasn’t an innocent bystander. Rather, he argued, Simas put himself in the middle of a fight in which the probable outcome was death.

“He didn’t kill Jesse Strobel that night, but under the law he is just as guilty as the person who did,” Simon said.

Simon also argued that a statement by Castillo to a police informant about the fight established a robbery motive. In that statement, which was tape-recorded last year, Castillo said that Strobel was struggling too much for them to get any money.

Castillo is being held in County Jail pending sentencing in a separate murder case. Four months ago, he pleaded guilty to fatally shooting a Santa Paula market owner in June 1998. He is expected to serve a life prison sentence without possibility of parole for that crime.