MARTINEZ — A Knightsen man who has now been convicted in three separate homicides was sentenced last month to 76 years to life in prison for a Pittsburg fatal stabbing in which he incorrectly assumed the victim had something to do with his daughter’s disappearance.
Jimmy Biles Jr., 50, was convicted in August of murdering Albert Lea Jr., 49, in a 2019 stabbing at Pittsburg’s El Pueblo neighborhood. Lea’s attorney argued during trial that killing was self-defense because Lea struck Biles in the head with a perfume bottle.
The day of the stabbing, Biles made several frantic calls to police saying his young daughter was a human trafficking victim and being held against her will in Pittsburg. When police didn’t respond to the residence, Biles drove to the city’s El Pueblo neighborhood where he found his daughter and picked her up. On the drive out of the area, he saw Lea walking to the store, confronted him, and stabbed him to death while his daughter screamed for him to stop, according to testimony at Biles’ trial.
During the confrontation, Lea said repeatedly he had nothing to do with Biles’ daughter. Authorities identified another juvenile as the person she spent the day with, prosecutors said.
After the stabbing, Biles fled, which his attorney said was out of a lack of faith in the police, not out of guilt.
“The jury in this case has our gratitude, they did the hard work to see the truth about what defendant Biles did,” deputy district attorney Aron DeFerrari said in an email after the sentencing. “Thanks to the jurors and the Pittsburg Police Department, Mr. Biles won’t be able to ever kill anyone again.”
Biles now has three homicide-related convictions under his belt. He was convicted of murder as a juvenile in 1988, and of manslaughter in the commission of a carjacking in 1996, authorities said. Biles’ attorney, Kellin Cooper, didn’t respond to a request for comment.
Biles hasn’t yet been transferred from county jail to state prison to begin serving his sentence. He gets credit for the two years he spent at the jail awaiting trial.
Source: www.mercurynews.com