A jury deadlocked in the murder trial of former Los Angeles Raiders defensive end Anthony Wayne Smith.
The Lancaster Superior Court panel announced it was split 8-4 – with the majority favoring guilt — after nine days of deliberations, according to defense attorney Michael S. Evans.
Smith, 44, of Fontana, is accused in the Oct. 7, 2008, killing of 31-year-old Maurilio Ponce, who was beaten and shot several times before his body was dumped near the Antelope Valley poppy fields, about 11 miles west of Lancaster.
Prosecutors claim that Smith lured Ponce to the highway where he was murdered over a business deal gone wrong “He was not involved in this,” Evans said of the Raiders’ top pick in 1990, who went on to play professional football with the Los Angeles and Oakland Raiders between 1991 and 1997. Evans argues there is no physical evidence linking Smith to the crime.
Co-defendant Charles Eric Honest, 42, of Los Angeles, was convicted last week of second-degree murder and is set to be sentenced tomorrow, according to Sandi Gibbons of the District Attorney’s Office.
A third man, Dewann Wesley White, 33, of Bloomington, is awaiting trial.
