Kalah Trial: One Conviction, Two Hung Juries

During the trial, Judge Fall dismissed charges against a fourth co-defendant, Det Kalah, on a 1118.1 motion.  Det Kalah had been in custody for six months, refusing to take a plea agreement that would have released him early, based on the fact that he maintained his innocence.

The District Attorney’s office, represented by Supervising DA Garrett Hamilton, is inclined to retry Dom and Anthony Kalah unless an agreement can be reached.  He made a new and substantially reduced offer.  Dom Kalah was offered 16 months, which would double to 32 months due to a strike (though the defense contests that Mr. Kalah does not even has a strike).  Under this deal, he would have to serve 80% but he does have six months in custody.  The estimation is that he would have 18 months.

For Anthony Kalah, they are offering to dismiss if he admits to a felony violation of probation.  His probation would then become prison time.

As one attorney noted, it is a strange offer because the evidence is much stronger against Anthony Kalah than Dom Kalah, who would appear to have been simply in the wrong place at the wrong time.

The attorney indicated to the Vanguard that both men would have to accept the agreement for the agreement to be valid, and it appears Dom Kalah is not likely to take the deal. 

There is a hearing on July 18 that will determine whether or not they accept the offer.  Meanwhile the matter has been set for trial with Judge Mock on August 1.  They estimate at this point at least a six-day trial, perhaps longer if it is before a new judge.  However, with an impacted calendar there was no guarantee the trial would actually go on as scheduled on August 1.

As the Vanguard reported last week, from the start, the prosecution argued that the properties at 481 and 501 Walnut Street in West Sacramento were a hotbed of Asian gangster activity over the years.

The police and Prosecutor Ryan Couzens had conducted six months of surveillance on the property, however when they raided it there were pills that turned out to be caffeine pills, powder that turned out to be Ibuprofen, and 1.4 grams of meth.

The critical evidence was a jailhouse conversation in which Mr. Couzens argued that the defendants “established their participation in the conspiracy when they discussed amongst themselves, among other things, who the ‘snitch’ was to their operation.”

Based on this, and tenuous connections to Asian street gangs, the DA charged various people with drug dealing, conspiracy to deal drugs, gang enhancements and the more serious gun enhancement which would have automatically increased the penalty by ten years.

The jury would convict Saengphet Onsri on all charges, though again, Judge Fall dismissed the gun charge during the 1118.1 motion, which critically eliminates a 10-year enhancement on his likely sentence.

Still, Mr. Onsri faces between 7 and 12 years in prison for, in essence, possessing 1.4 grams of meth for the purposes of sale.  That is because he not only has to admit a violation of probation, but also the gang enhancement was found to be true.

The prosecution was unable to show the nexus between Mr. Onsri’s gang affiliation and the criminal activity in this case.

His attorney, J. Toney, acknowledged in closing that he had possession of meth for sale.  He argued that the defendant had possessed the meth to support himself and his unborn child.

Mr. Onsri’s gang, the Tiny Rascals, is a known rival to the Asian Gang Crips that the Kalahs purportedly belonged to.

But in fact, Mr. Toney argued that Mr. Onsri had left the gang two years prior when he got married, per the rules of the gang that require such action be taken.

Far from an operation to support a gang, the value of the meth packaged was about $40.  Where was the money to support the gang, as alleged by Mr. Couzens, going to come from, to support himself and his family?  Mr. Toney asked this rhetorically to the jury.

However, the 186.22(B) charge, the gang enhancement, is written very broadly.  It reads: “Any person who is convicted of a felony committed for the benefit of, at the direction of, or in association with any criminal street gang, with the specific intent to promote, further, or assist in any criminal conduct by gang members.”

It is in the association part of the gang enhancement where the jury apparently found enough evidence to find the enhancement true.  This is no small matter, as it will add anywhere from two to four years in prison.

According to the attorney, there was a portion of the jury that was simply going to convict everyone of everything.  However, the evidence against Dom Kalah was ridiculously thin.

Dom Kalah, his attorney argued, was once in a gang.  But now he is over 40 years old, he has not been part of a gang since the 1990s, and while there is an old tattoo of AGC (Asian Gangster Crips) on his chest, there is no evidence that he has been active in a gang.

He does have old arrests back in 1992 and 1999, but no convictions at this time.

Ms. Lance argued that there was no evidence that Dom Kalah is an active gang member, and she called it the “desperate hope to justify the tremendous expenditure of resources” on this case, and called Mr. Couzens the “prosecutor who is the ring leader of this circus.”

She cited the utter lack of evidence of drugs, the only 1.4 grams of meth that was found as the result of the raid and the ultimate lack of evidence of an active gang.

While Mr. Couzens maintained the jailhouse conversation was tantamount to a conspiracy, the defense countered that what happened was that the group of men were placed in jail and held there a long time, they had no idea what they were there for and thus began to speculate and try to figure it out.

Ms. Lance argued that their discussion focused only on the only evidence that they knew in the holding cell.

Mr. Couzens, in his rebuttal, argued that this excuse was flimsy, that if the jurors were held in a room for a long time, they would not admit to some criminal conspiracy.  Of course, his analogy omits the critical difference that the men were being held in jail, and therefore it would make sense that they attempted to figure out why they were arrested.

Mr. Couzens argued that this is evidence of a criminal conspiracy.  The jury would have to decide if that were the case, and there was almost no other evidence to support the criminal conspiracy charge, other than the supposition that the men are in a gang and therefore dealing drugs to attempt to support that gang.

Outside of that conversation, there was no other evidence that pointed toward any involvement by Dom Kalah, and yet that was enough for at least five jurors (or as many as seven, that is not clear) to believe him guilty of the conspiracy charges.

There is a bit more evidence against Anthony Kalah, but even that is not direct.  He was seen walking out of Tommy Kalah’s apartment where the drugs were found.  However as Robert Spangler, his defense attorney, argued, there was no evidence that Anthony Kalah had anything to do with the drugs.

The prosecution reasoned that he must have known the meth was in the room and therefore was part of the conspiracy.  Mr. Spangler argued that the jailhouse conversation that the prosecution relies on was mere speculation by Mr. Kalah as to why he was being held, rather than evidence of a criminal conspiracy.

Mr. Kalah was arrested two and a half years prior to this incident, but had no police contacts since then. 

The MySpace photos the gang expert used to attempt to identify him as a gangster were, in fact, several years old.  He has no tattoos, and did not admit to being part of a gang, but as Mr. Couzens argued, he does hang out with a lot of gangsters.

Mr. Spangler accused the prosecution of using circular logic, as the gang expert indicated that he believed him to be a gang member because he committed a crime on December 15, 2010 (the date of the arrests).  However, the prosecution argues that he is guilty of the crimes on December 15, because he is a gang member.

The bottom line in this case is that the police conducted a six-month investigation and all they found in the end was 1.4 grams of meth.  Based on that and alleged gang affiliation, Mr. Onsri is facing 7 to 12 years in prison.  And now Dom and Anthony Kalah face a second trial or prison time themselves.

The worst part is that even Mr. Couzens seems to acknowledge the small time operation this clearly was.

He calls this a gang, selling drugs.  He said that it is irrelevant that Sacramento or Stockton would charge this crime as a misdemeanor.  He said that it is on them, and their problem.  He said this is Yolo County and we do things differently here.

He admits that he is very aggressive about gangs and crimes.  He said the same for his office.

He admitted that they did not find evidence of a huge drug operation.  That they only found 1.4 grams of meth.

But he said that if he allow “specks of methamphetamine” to go unchecked, if we allow a fledgling gang to go unchecked, just because it is a fledgling operation, that “that’s throwing in the towel.”

Rather than throwing in the towel, the DA’s office and the West Sacramento Police Department has clearly thrown a tremendous amount of resources at what would seem to be a case of 1.4 grams of meth possession for sale, and admittedly so by the sole defendant convicted of this crime.

The likelihood of gaining the convictions of Anthony and Dom Kalah seems remote.  The evidence of their participation is just not there.  But there was enough evidence to convince half the jury that there was a crime committed, and so this game goes on.

The Vanguard will have more on this case as the court file becomes available for further scrutiny.

—David M. Greenwald reporting