OAKLAND — A month after he was convicted of murder for a killing that happened during a 2019 heroin deal in Oakland, a Hayward man received a prison term of 50 years to life.
Damone Haynes, 47, was convicted of shooting 45-year-old Charles Billing, who was killed July 26, 2019 as he sat inside his van on the 10100 block of Bancroft Avenue. Prosecutors say Haynes and two other men arranged to buy heroin from Billings that day. One of the three alleged perpetrators then got into Billings’ van and drove away, with Haynes and another man in their vehicle, according to authorities.
Haynes was sentenced at a court hearing Friday morning. Prosecutors said in a news release announcing the verdict that Haynes “shot at the victim twice which caused Billings to fall out of his van and into the street,” and that he “continued to shoot Billings five more times while Billings was in the street.”
Haynes was tried last month alongside 46-year-old Anthony Rhodes, who was acquitted of murder, carjacking, and other charges related to Billings’ murder. His attorney, Chris Martin, told jurors during trial that one of their co-defendants, Terrell Martinez, was blaming Rhodes in order to spare himself a murder conviction.
According to Martin, it was Martinez who drove Billings’ van away from the scene. When confronted by police, he told them that Rhodes was the owner of a 650-area code cellphone that was present at the scene of the shooting, and clearly belonged to one of the perpetrators.
“(Martinez) knew he could extricate himself from this case and the way to do that was to get rid of the hot potato, this phone,” Martin said at the beginning of the trial. “Who better to say he was with than Anthony Rhodes? Now he’s got rid of his 650 phone and he’s implicated Mr. Rhodes.”
Martinez pleaded no contest to a single count of being an accessory to the killing, a week after the verdicts were returned in Haynes’ and Rhodes’ trial. He is awaiting sentencing, court records show.
Haynes gets credit for two years he spent in the jail awaiting trial.
Source: www.mercurynews.com