Jul 24, 2008 6:01 pm US/Pacific
21-Year-Old Antioch Man Gets Life For Cop Slaying
ANTIOCH (BCN) ―
A 21-year-old Antioch man was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole Thursday for the 2005 murder of Pittsburg police Officer Larry Lasater.
Andrew Moffett, who was not the shooter but was convicted under California's felony murder rule, was 17 on April 23, 2005, when he and co-defendant Alexander Hamilton, 18 at the time, had a friend steal a car for them and went into the Raley's supermarket in Pittsburg wearing gloves, masks and carrying semi-automatic pistols.
The felony murder rule holds all participants of certain felonies equally responsible when someone is killed in the commission of the underlying crime.
At the supermarket, Moffett pressed his gun to one of the cashier's ears, demanded cash and threatened to kill her. He and Hamilton threatened to kill at least two other cashiers and tellers at the Wells Fargo branch bank inside the store before fleeing with the cash, witnesses testified during trial.
As the two teens were making their getaway, they crashed the stolen car and took off on foot through backyards and over fences. Eventually they ended up on the Delta De Anza trail as police closed in on them.
Moffett jumped a fence and kept running, but Hamilton was too tired and hid in the bushes. He started shooting when he saw Lasater, 35, the first officer to arrive on scene. Two bullets struck him and he went down.
When two more police officers, who happened to be identical twins, went to help Lasater, Hamilton fired at them, too, but missed. According to prosecutor Harold Jewett, Hamilton kept firing until he ran out of bullets and was forced to surrender.
Antioch police caught Moffett a short time later. They found his gun hidden in a potted begonia plant in somebody's backyard and the money, with his DNA on it, stuffed into a garbage can.
Hamilton and Moffett were tried together and both convicted of first-degree murder Aug. 13. The jury also found them guilty of three counts of second-degree robbery, one count of car theft and multiple firearms and special circumstance enhancements, including killing a police officer in the commission of a robbery and knowingly killing a police officer while he was carrying out his duties.
Hamilton was also found guilty of two counts of attempted murder for firing at the two officers who went to Lasater's aid.
Hamilton was sentenced to death Nov. 2 and remains on death row, according to the California Department of Corrections and Rehabilitation.
Moffett, who was 17 at the time, was not eligible for the death penalty.
Lasater's wife, Jo Ann Lasater, told Moffett during the sentencing hearing in Richmond Thursday that her husband had been a "wonderful person, funny, smart and a devoted family man."
Jo Ann Lasater was pregnant when her husband was killed, and now, she said, "My son will only know his father through pictures and stories."
She said she hadn't seen Moffett take any responsibility for her husband's murder, but, she told him, "Without you and your robbery plans, my husband would still be alive."
Lasater's mother, Phyllis Loya, said her son's murder had affected the entire family, his friends and his colleagues at the Pittsburg Police Department.
"Those two bullets did not just kill Larry, they killed a part of everyone who knew him," Loya said.
But she told Moffett, "What's really agonizing is that I've never seen one bit of remorse."
Loya said that while it was Hamilton who shot her son, Moffett had given him the gun and Moffett had gotten the car used in the robbery.
"Andrew Moffett, in my opinion, is deserving of the harshest punishment possible," Loya said.
Jewett said Moffett has shown an "absolute refusal to accept the fact that he is not only legally, but morally responsible for the death of Larry Lasater."
"The defendant has shown absolutely no remorse, no understanding, no regret," Jewett said.
"Andrew Moffett has not done one thing to deserve the leniency of this court. ... We ask the court to impose the maximum penalty permitted by law. We do ask this court to throw away the key," Jewett said.
Moffett's mother, Felicia Boissiere, said she felt deeply for Lasater's family, but she also loved her son and wanted him to have the possibility of a second chance.
She said she believed it was immoral to sentence a juvenile to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
"My son should be given a second chance," Boissiere said. "This was a mistake. ... He didn't go out to kill Mr. Lasater. It's absurd to sentence someone for life for a murder he didn't commit."
She said that before Lasater's death she had never heard of the felony murder rule. She also argued it was used disproportionately to charge black people.
Boissiere said that Moffett was intelligent, better than the people he connected with, but that he had been misguided.
"He deserves a second chance," she said.
Moffett's half-sister, Cora Donaldson, echoed her mother's plea for leniency and added that her brother hadn't had a father figure in his life and hadn't hurt anyone.
Moffett's attorney G. Wright Morton asked the court to consider Moffett's age at the time of the crime and his indirect involvement in the homicide.
He also said "the United States is the only country in the world except Somalia that gives life sentences to children."
According to Morton, adolescents' brains are not fully formed, and just as the U.S. Supreme Court ruled in 2005 that it is cruel and unusual to execute a person for a crime committed before that person turned 18, it is similarly cruel to sentence someone to life without the possibility of parole for a crime committed by a 17-year-old.
Morton asked the court to exercise its discretion and give Moffett the possibility of becoming a productive citizen.
When it came Moffett's time to speak, he listed seven cases in which police officers killed unarmed people and were exonerated.
"For every day almost you and everybody that's been coming to this court has heard the DA say over and over again that it doesn't matter if I didn't have any control over the officer's death, that it doesn't matter if I was blocks away from the murder, nowhere in sight or earshot. The DA says it doesn't matter. What does it mean it doesn't matter?" Moffett said.
"The police get to murder and get away Scott free regardless if they (the people shot) were unarmed, retarded, drugged up, crazy, harmless, but when an officer gets killed things change," Moffett said.
Moffett apologized to Lasater's family, but said he admitted to nothing.
Contra Costa County Judge Laurel Brady said she saw no reason for the court to be lenient and sentenced Moffett to life without the possibility of parole, with an additional 14 years for the robbery convictions.
Moffett mumbled as he was taken away in shackles.
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