DUBLIN — At Santa Rita Jail last week, deputies brought 33-year-old Bryson Levy to a cell already occupied by Yuri Brand, an El Cerrito man jailed for allegedly living without permission for two days at a stranger’s unoccupied Piedmont home.
Less than one hour later on Sept. 13, deputies found Levy — a registered sex offender with a recent vandalism arrest — sitting on a mattress. Underneath the jail bed lay Brand. He was dead.
The exact cause of Brand’s death is unclear, but Levy was re-arrested and Alameda County prosecutors on Monday charged him with one count of murder.
There are no indications the two men knew one another before being paired as cellmates, in a placement authorities said was routine.
Although the time of death is not yet known, deputies noticed a “disturbance” at 12:28 p.m. — 46 minutes after Levy was transferred to the cell.
Neither prosecutors nor the Alameda County Sheriff’s Office have commented on the suspected motive.
A probable cause declaration filed by an Alameda County Sheriff’s deputy only says that Levy made unspecified “statements” that further indicated he killed Brand.
The two men had both been booked into Santa Rita Jail within 48 hours of the homicide, for alleged property crimes.
Levy, who was living at a halfway house through a program called Men of Valor, allegedly ransacked the home and broke $3,500 worth of furniture on Sept. 12. The damage was well above the $400 threshold for a felony vandalism charge, but prosecutors elected to charge him with a misdemeanor, court records show.
Brand, who had schizophrenia, was charged with felony burglary and misdemeanor trespassing for allegedly breaking into a Piedmont home and consuming $1,000 worth of food and alcohol. He was arrested Sept. 11, court records show.
But Levy has had regular brushes with the law since 2016, when he was arrested in Oakland on suspicion of sexually assaulting a stranger. In that incident, police say Levy noticed a woman walking past him, began yelling sexual innuendo, then took out his penis, knocked the victim down and forced her to orally copulate him.
The sexual assault ended only because the victim was able to bite Levy and run. He managed to chase her and touched her private parts while she screamed for help, eventually attracting the attention of a good samaritan who called 911, authorities said.
Levy pleaded no contest to forcible oral copulation, received six years in state prison and was forced to register as a sex offender for life.
He was paroled from prison in August 2021, but racked up parole violations for absconding from a GPS monitoring program, failing to take drug tests and being arrested on suspicion of petty theft, court records show. He also spent time in a Men of Valor halfway house in late 2021, then re-entered the program this year, court records show.
Source: www.mercurynews.com