Two men accused in the shooting death of a gas station clerk during a robbery in the Mid-City area of Los Angeles pleaded not guilty Friday to murder and other charges.
Young Yooun and Courtney Campbell, both 29-year-old Los Angeles residents, are charged in the July 3 slaying of Akram Hanna, 52, of Los Angeles.
The murder charge includes the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of a robbery, and Yooun is also facing an allegation that he personally used a handgun resulting in death.
Prosecutors will decide later whether to seek the death penalty against the defendants, who are both also charged with a count of second-degree robbery involving Hanna.
Yooun and Campbell allegedly went into a gas station at Venice and Hauser boulevards and forced the clerk to lay on the ground while they stole lottery tickets. Yooun allegedly shot the clerk before leaving the business.
Hanna — who had worked at the Shell gas station mini-mart for about eight years — was pronounced dead at the scene.
Yooun was arrested July 9 by investigators from the Los Angeles Police Department’s West Bureau Homicide near the 1100 block of South Harvard Boulevard, and Campbell was arrested July 16 by the FBI-LAPD Fugitive Task Force near the 1900 block of Curson Avenue.
Both men remain jailed without bail. They are due back in a downtown Los Angeles courtroom Jan. 30, when a date is scheduled to be set for a hearing to determine if there is sufficient evidence to require them to stand trial.