A state appeals court panel on Thursday upheld a former Whittier resident’s conviction for the January 2009 shooting death of a San Pedro woman who was found dead inside her car.
The three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s contention that there was insufficient evidence against Michael Bonfiglio to support the jury’s finding of a special circumstance allegation that Ginie Samayoa was murdered during the commission of a robbery.
Bonfiglio was convicted in March 2012 of first-degree murder for the 27- year-old woman’s Jan. 30, 2009, killing, along with one count each of conspiracy to commit a crime and second-degree robbery. He is serving life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Two other Whittier men, Raul Tiscareno and Daniel Keith Martinez, were tried separately, convicted of Samayoa’s killing and sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole. Their appeal is still pending.
Samayoa’s body was found Jan. 30, 2009, in the driver’s seat of her red Toyota Tercel, in an alley behind a San Pedro diner.
Authorities said the woman had been engaged in identity theft and that her laptop computer was stolen from her during the attack, in which the three men were riding in her car after leaving her apartment about two blocks away with her.
In a 10-page ruling upholding Bonfiglio’s conviction, the appellate court panel found, “Samayoa was a small woman and the jury could rationally conclude that it did not take three men and a gun to rob her of a laptop computer and that they brought the gun to the robbery to kill her. Bonfiglio structured the robbery in a way that shifted responsibility for the killing to Martinez and Tiscareno, making him less likely to be a target for retribution.”
The appellate court justices noted Bonfiglio’s claim that he had withdrawn from the plan to rob her by the time of the shooting, but wrote that the jury “did not believe his explanations” and that it was “entirely rational for the jury to conclude Bonfiglio intended to rob and kill Samayoa.”
— City News Service