After about four hours of deliberation Saturday the jury in the Richie Fontaine trial announced they had found the 22-year-old defendant guilty of voluntary manslaughter for the March 2009 shooting death of Philip George.
Fontaine had been brought up on a first-degree murder charge for the crime, but his defense attorney decided Friday to offer the jury voluntary manslaughter as a lesser included charge, which they could turn to if they didn’t think Fontaine had intentionally plotted to kill George after the two exchanged words at Club Lexus in Smith Bay.
Government attorney Claude Walker had opposed the voluntary manslaughter charge – defined as a crime committed in the heat of passion – saying that exchange had happened earlier in the evening, giving Fontaine time to cool off before a heated gun battle erupted at Lexus after 2 a.m. on March 7, 2009.
Walker said in his closing arguments that Fontaine had "stalked his prey," and could be seen on the club’s surveillance camera footage waiting outside with a gun for George to come out, which indicated that he thought about what he was going to do before the gunfight occurred.
Though the jury found Fontaine not guilty of first-degree murder and opted for voluntary manslaughter, they did find him guilty of first-degree assault and a related weapons charge, along with reckless endangerment for releasing shots outside a club that was still filled with people.
Jurors also found Fontaine not guilty of attempted first-degree murder and a related weapons charge relating to James C. King, a patron inside the club who was shot in the head while trying to dodge the bullets. King survived the incident, but still has a bullet that cannot be removed lodged in his head.
Fontaine is scheduled for sentencing on May 19, but his attorneys plan to appeal the verdict.
In the meantime, he is facing as much as 11 years in prison for the manslaughter conviction, 15 for first-degree assault, five for reckless endangerment and 20 for the weapons charge, which is supposed to run consecutively with the rest of the sentence.
