Bey convicted of first-degree murder

Convicted of first-degree murder in the 2000 ambush shooting of a man for disrespecting his brother, Hakeem Bey is to learn today if he will spend the rest of his life in prison awaiting death from old age or from lethal injection.

A Common Pleas Court jury returns to court this morning to hear Bey's attorney and a Philadelphia prosecutor argue for or against imposing the death penalty.

Bey, 26, was found guilty yesterday by the jury in the Sept. 24, 2000, murder of Moses Williams; the wounding of Brencis Drew, who drove the station wagon in which Williams rode; and the subsequent wounding of Duane "Wiz DeNiro" Clinkscales, a rapper who as a back-seat passenger in the car saw the shooting and incriminated Bey.

Prosecutors say Bey also engineered the murder of a federally protected witness, who was shot to death Jan. 19, shortly before she was to testify against him. He has not been charged in that slaying.

The jury returned with the verdict shortly before 11 a.m. after deliberating about seven hours since Friday, and its decision drew gasps and tears from Bey's family.

Bey stood stoically, barely facing the jury. Bey, who prosecutors say was a member of a violent South Philadelphia drug gang, did not testify.

"I was very pleased that this jury was able to sort through the evidence," Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega said.

Vega said he would ask the jury to impose the death penalty because Bey endangered others when he fired five or six times at Williams as he sat in the front seat of the car, which was stopped behind two other vehicles in the 2200 block of Cross Street in South Philadelphia.

"There were five people in that car - two up front and three in the back - and the miracle is that the passengers in back weren't shot also," Vega added.

Defense attorney Joseph Santaguida did not say what mitigating evidence he might present to persuade the jury not to sentence Bey to death.

Under Pennsylvania law, the jury must decide whether to sentence Bey to death or to live in prison without parole.

It is a case in which two witnesses to Williams' slaying were themselves killed, and other witnesses refused to testify or shaded their words out of what Vega said was fear of retaliation by Bey.

The verdict's announcement reflected the wary atmosphere. The doors of the ninth-floor courtroom were locked and about 20 police officers and sheriff's deputies ringed the room's perimeter.

Williams, 23, and the others in the car were celebrating Clinkscales' recording contract. According to testimony, Williams was a member of a neighborhood gang from 27th and Tasker Streets who was embroiled in a dispute with a 23d Street gang dominated by the Beys.

Witnesses testified that Williams had disrespected Bey's brother, Paul Saleem. Shots were exchanged, and Bey decided to move the dispute to the next level.

The jury also found Bey guilty of two counts of aggravated assault.

One count involved the wounding of Drew. The other assault count involved the Dec. 26, 2000, shooting and wounding of Clinkscales in what prosecutors said was part of Bey's attempt to eliminate potential witnesses.

The jury also found Bey guilty of three firearms counts, one of carrying a firearm on Philadelphia streets and two of possessing an instrument of crime - the guns used in the Sept. 24 and Dec. 26 shootings.

With no physical evidence against Bey, prosecutors got the judge's permission to introduce evidence that Bey engineered the Jan. 19 murder of protected witness Chante Wright, to show that Bey was acting with a "guilty mind."

Wright was a passenger in the station wagon and identified Bey as the shooter. She later recanted, telling investigators that Bey had threatened to kill her if she testified against him.

Last year, after prosecutors agreed to reduce Wright's boyfriend's drug sentence and get her into the federal witness protection program, Wright changed her mind and agreed to testify against Bey.

On Jan. 19, Wright, 23, left witness protection in Jacksonville, Fla., to visit her seriously ill grandmother in Philadelphia. Within seven hours, she and a friend, Octavia Green, 23, were shot to death.

A South Philadelphia man, Laquaille Bryant, 26, has been charged with those murders and is awaiting trial. At Bey's trial, Vega introduced evidence of cell-phone traffic involving Bryant, Bey and a middleman in the minutes before and after Wright and Green were killed.