OAKLAND — A reputed Berkeley gang member was found guilty Thursday of murdering three people roughly 15 years ago after a trial marred by allegations of witness intimidation and security lapses.
As the verdict was being read, Joseph Carroll Jr. slammed the table and openly wept – at times, so loud that his wailings drowned out the voice of the court clerk as she read the jury’s decision. At one point, he looked back to the gallery and said, “Momma, I didn’t do it.”
“I didn’t kill these people. I didn’t do it. I did not do it,” the 38-year-old yelled out to the courtroom. “Why did y’all do this to my life?”
Meanwhile, his mother also left the courtroom, but not before turning to the jury and saying: “You people convicted an innocent man. That’s what you guys did.”
Jurors found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, but dropped one count from first-degree to second-degree murder. He was found guilty of every other charge against him, except for a single attempted murder charge.
His attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.
The conviction caps a trial that spanned nearly two months and tested the limits of the East Bay’s justice system as a parade of witnesses changed their stories on the stand, recanted their statements or sat in stony silence as Carroll looked on in the courtroom.
The verdict means Carroll will spend at least 25 years in prison, though he could remain behind bars for the rest of his life. A sentencing date was not immediately announced.
Carroll faced three murder charges and a slew of other felonies tied to four shootings from 2009 through 2011. They all stemmed from a venomous rivalry between alleged gang members in Berkeley — where Carroll lived — and North Oakland.
The first shooting happened April 23, 2009, when authorities say Carroll went to North Oakland and unloaded an assault-style rifle on men standing along 45th Street. The drive-by shooting left one man, Nguyen Ngo, dead and another man severely injured.
Slightly more than a year later, on May 3, 2010, authorities claim Carroll ambushed two North Oakland men over concerns that one of them was dating his child’s mother. Investigators later found at least 17 bullet casings at the scene.
The following month, prosecutors suspect Carroll fatally shot Nehemiah Lewis, a man Carroll believed had witnessed the previous killing.
The final shooting came on April 13, 2011, when authorities claim Carroll was the gunman in a drive-by shooting on another car that killed Andrew Henderson Jr. Three other people were in the vehicle, though no one else was injured.
Carroll was arrested in 2017 and was ordered to stand trial for the killings a year later. Ever since, authorities say his case has been marred by attempts at witness intimidation.
Carroll’s relatives were caught illegally photographing witnesses in court and posting an Instagram livestream of court proceedings. As a result, court security was beefed up to the extreme — a second set of metal detectors were set up outside the courtroom door, and attendees were barred from bringing in anything but pen and paper.
Despite these restrictions, one of Carroll’s relatives was caught bringing a 65-gigabyte audio recorder — disguised in a pen — to a July 1 court hearing, authorities said. The woman claimed it was accidental and she believed it was just a pen.
Several witnesses told investigators they were too scared to come to court, and police had to track down and arrest at least two for failing to comply with subpoenas. During one hearing, a witness was held in contempt of court after staring blankly at the prosecutor and refusing to answer a single question or identify himself by name.
Prosecutors and Carroll’s attorneys also traded barbs as the trial came to a close.
“Let’s seek clarity here — let’s disinfect the lies and the insidious nature of the prosecution in this case, and expose it for what it truly is,” said Carroll’s attorney, William Welch, during closing arguments. He implored the jurors to not give in to a complex web of “rumors and lies” that led to Carroll’s arrest.
The attorney’s words were merely a bid to turn the case into a “popularity contest,” countered prosecutor Natasha Jontulovich.
“You’ve been not-so-subtly invited to disregard the law,” Jontulovich told the jury. “This is a distraction technique.”
