https://doraimage.state.co.us/LibertyIMS::/user%3Dreg%20public%3Bpwd%3D%3Bsys%3DDORA%3BCmd%3DXmlGetPage%3BFolder%3D%2313c9%3BDoc%3D22%3BPage%3D1

Here is a list of the gold coins that Grigg was ordered to forfeit to federal authorities. These coins were seized from his briefcase:

1 U.S. 1996 1/2 oz. Eagle

1 Canadian 1/10 oz. maple

1 Canadian ½ oz. Maple

1 Canadian 1 oz. Maple

5 French 20-Franc Angels

These gold coins were seized from a storage locker:

1 U.S. 2007 Eagle 4-piece set (1.85 oz.)

4 U.S. ½ oz. Eagles

12 U.S. ¼ oz. Eagles

1 South African 1/10 oz. Kruggerrand

1 South African ½ oz. Kruggerrand

2 Canadian 1/20 oz. Maples

2 Canadian ½ oz. Maples

16 Canadian ¼ oz. Maples

9 Mexican gold pesos

Post from: The Sidebar

First, a comment from Dave Szody, father of an Army captain who was wounded in the first drive-by shooting.

Next, some reaction from Sgt. William Jacobs, who was standing next to then-Lt. Zachary Szody the night of the first drive-by shooting on May 26, 2008. Two bullets hit Szody but the shots missed Jacobs.

And finally, Chief Deputy District Attorney Diana K. May describes the shootings as random senseless acts of violence.

Post from: The Sidebar

Post from: The Sidebar

First from Chief Deputy District Attorney Diana K. May, one of the two prosecutors in the trial.

And then from Nataly Cervantes, whose sister and boyfriend were killed in the double homicide.

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The results should be known within the hour. Stay tuned to Gazette.com for details.

Post from: The Sidebar

Post from: The Sidebar

Where the gun came from…

According to prosecutors, Falu-Vives bought his AK-47 for $510 from Specialty Sports on May 10, 2008. That would have been 16 days before the weapon was used to injure Lt. Zachary Szody.

Guns and Soldiers

Defense attorney Ernest Marquez told the jurors not to be swayed by the several photographs and videos that showed the defendant and his fellow soldiers taking target practice and holding their guns.

“Soldiers have been posing with guns so long as there have been soldiers and weapons,” Marquez said.

Muzzle flash

Two key issues in the trial are the question of who pulled the trigger of the AK-47 on the night of the double homicide and where the gun was located within the car when the shots were fired.

Prosecutors contend Falu-Vives fired his weapon from the driver’s seat while pointing the AK-47 toward the front passenger window.

Former Army medic turned prosecution witness Alonso “Turtle” Hernandez testified he shielded his face while the gun fired about 12 to 18 inches away from his face.

Marquez claims if that were so, Hernandez would have been injured by the gunfire as well.

“A gun going off anywhere near your face is going to hurt. It’s going to more than hurt – it’s going to injure you,” he told the jury.

Freudian slip?

Marquez argued that Hernandez made a telling slip of the tongue while talking with a Colorado Springs detective.

He claimed that Hernandez said, “I killed someone,” but then quickly amended his statement to say, “I was involved in a shooting.”

Gang hit?

Senior Deputy District Attorney Margaret Vellar went though a list of defense claims that she sought to debunk on rebuttal.

One drew an objection. Vellar said there was no evidence that the double homicide was somehow gang-related.

“There was no evidence of a gang hit,” she said.

Marquez stood and responded, “There was no argument that there was a gang hit.”

Judge Thomas Kennedy reminded the jurors that the lawyer’s arguments are just that and should not be considered evidence.

Brass trophy?

Defense lawyers raised questions about testimony that co-defendant Rudy Torres-Gandarilla had picked up the shell casings from the shots Falu-Vives had fired and returned them to the defendant.

Vellar argued that was not so strange.

“These people live by the rules of the street,” she said. “The rules of the street say you give the shells back. It’s a trophy for the shooting.”

Conspiracy theory?

Vellar also derided the notion that all the other people in the vehicles used in the drive-bys had coordinated their testimony somehow to falsely identify Falu-Vives as the gunman.

“None of these guys are smart enough to think of all of this,” she said.

Resistance is futile…

Marquez made a brief passing Star Trek reference when describing how the jury works.

“I kind of think of the jury as a Borg collective,” he said. “All these minds together.”

Post from: The Sidebar

Testimony concluded this morning after the jury heard from defense investigator Troy Zook who described a hole or break he found in a chain-link fence near the scene of a June 6, 2008 double homicide at Monterey Road near Carmel Drive in Colorado Springs.

After testimony concluded, Judge Thomas L. Kennedy denied a defense motion for acquittal and also rejected a defense request to dismiss the murder counts charging Falu-Vives with committing the crimes with “extreme indifference.”

The 25-year-old Fort Carson soldier is accused of being the gunman in a May 26, 2008 drive-by shooting that wounded an Army lieutenant and in a June 6, 2008 drive-by in which two people were killed while they were hanging garage sale signs.

Closing arguments are expected to begin after lunch.

For more details, stay tuned to the Sidebar blog at Gazette.com  

Post from: The Sidebar

Post from: The Sidebar

Cordell Brown, a firearms examiner for the Colorado Springs Police Department, also said he was able to match some of the bullet fragments and a shell casing found at the two crime scenes with rounds he test fired from an AK-47 belonging to the Fort Carson soldier accused in the two shootings.

Brown compared two bullet fragments found at a May 26, 2008 drive-by in which Lt. Zachary A. Szody was wounded with a fragment recovered from a June 6, 2008 shooting in which Amairany Cervantes, 18, and Cesar Ramirez-Ibanez were killed.

“I did find the same set of tool marks,” Brown said during the trial of Jomar Falu-Vives, a 25-year-old Iraq War veteran accused of first-degree murder and first-degree attempted murder.

After police impounded Falu-Vives’s AK-47, Brown fired several test shots and compared those bullets as well. Some matched, but one didn’t, he said.

“It’s one of those things I can’t explain,” he said. One possibility is that something happened to the interior of the gun barrel since the original shots were fired, he said.

Defense attorneys for Falu-Vives are expected to begin presenting their case on Tuesday as the trial enters its fourth week.

Stay with the Sidebar blog at Gazette.com for updates.

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