A state appeals court panel has upheld a man’s conviction for fatally shooting a cashier during an attempted robbery at a gas station in Diamond Bar more than two decades ago.
In a ruling released Thursday, the three-justice panel from California’s 2nd District Court of Appeal rejected the defense’s claims that there were errors in Lino Jesus Acero’s case, including a decision that he should be tried in adult court instead of juvenile court for the Nov. 18, 1994, killing of 42-year-old Mahfouz Ghabour at an Arco gas station — a crime that occurred when Acero was 17.
The appellate court justices also rejected the defense’s challenge against the special circumstance allegation of murder during the commission of an attempted robbery.
“The evidence in this case did not support an inference or otherwise suggest that the robbery was incidental to, or an afterthought to, the murder of the mini-mart store clerk. To the contrary, the facts of this case reveal a textbook robbery: Defendant entered the mini-mart, demanded money from the cash register, and shot the clerk who did not comply with his demands,” the panel wrote in its 31-page ruling.
Acero was convicted in March 2016 of first-degree murder, with jurors finding true the special circumstance allegation and an allegation that he personally used a handgun during the commission of the crime.
Acero and another man fled the scene empty-handed, Deputy District Attorney Ross Alari said after the verdict.
Homicide detectives reopened the case nearly a decade later. Surveillance video of the attack was posted on “America’s Most Wanted,” leading to a tip about the gunman, but detectives needed to conduct further investigation, according to the prosecutor.
Acero, who is now 40, was arrested in 2014 after law enforcement uploaded the mini-mart’s surveillance video onto YouTube, got a wiretap on Acero’s phone and began interviewing his friends and family about the shooting, the appellate court justices noted.
He acknowledged his involvement in the crime during some of the conversations, and denied any involvement in other conversations, the panel noted in its ruling.
Acero was sentenced in October 2016 to life in prison without the possibility of parole, with the judge noting then that the defendant had racked up eight felony convictions and 12 misdemeanor convictions and spent 12 of the intervening 20 years in prison or jail, according to the appellate court panel’s ruling.
The panel noted that “the life of crime the defendant has chosen to lead over the last 20 years strongly suggests that he was not likely to be rehabilitated and that the murder he committed at age 17 was part of a larger pattern of criminality reflecting an irreparable corruption.”
The second suspect is still at large.
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