BREAKING NEWS
DENVER - A Denver jury has found suspected gang member Willie Clark guilty in the murder of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams.
Judge Christina Habas made the announcement in front of a packed courtroom filled with both friends and family of the victim and the defendant. Clark faced 21 counts and was found guilty of them all.
Before the verdict was announced, Clark, dressed in khaki pants and a long-sleeved button-down plaid shirt, sat with his attorneys in a starkly quiet courtroom.
Habas praised Clark for his behavior during the two-and-a-half week trial just moments before she announced the guilty verdict.
As the verdict was read in open court at 12:10 p.m., the jurors sat silently, many with straight faces. Courtroom observerers say at least one juror was crying.
Clark did not react to the verdict and only slightly shook his head. One of his defense attorneys reached over and put his arm around Clark.
"Today ultimately shows that nobody wins," Rosalind Williams, Darrent Williams' mother, said. "I love my only son and his children lost their father. This doesn't bring him back."
Denver Broncos President and CEO Pat Bowlen released a statement moments after the verdict was read.
"Nothing can ever bring Darrent Williams back or ease the suffering for (his mother) Rosalind and her grandchildren," Bowlen said in the statement on the team's official site. "But after three long years, it is very gratifying to see closure brought to this case. This process has been extremely difficult for the Williams family, his friends and teammates, this community, and the entire Denver Broncos organization."
Bowlen went on to thank the Denver Police Department and the Denver District Attorney's Office for their work, and thanked the community for its support.
"This was a quest for justice," Denver District Attorney Mitch Morrissey said.
Bowlen added: "Darrent's legacy will live on for all of us in the Broncos organization, and the outstanding work done each day at the Darrent Williams Memorial Teen Center is a tribute to his impact on this community. Our hearts continue to go out to the entire Williams family."
"It's a senseless crime," Rosalind Williams said. "It's a life lost that can't be brought back."
Soon after learning his fate, Clark was taken into custody and handcuffed by one of the more than a dozen law enforcement officers in the room.
Clark had long said he was not in the SUV from which the fatal shot was fired in the early morning hours of New Year's Day 2007. During the course of the trial, Clark's defense tried to place most of the blame on the shoulders of Daniel Harris, a suspected gang member and associate of Clark.
Prosecutors countered saying there was "a mountain of evidence" against Clark, a suspected member of the Denver Eastside Tre Tre Crips. They believed Clark, while driving a white Chevrolet Tahoe, pulled alongside a stretched Hummer limousine and opened fire using his own semi-automatic handgun. Williams was hit in the neck. Two others were hit as well. Brandon Flowers and Nicole Reindl both survived and testified during the trial.
Prosecutors felt Clark became enraged after being "disrespected" by a group of Denver Broncos in and outside of the Safari Nightclub on Broadway just south of downtown. They told the jury that Clark, Harris, Mario Anderson and Kataina Jackson-Keeling hopped in the Tahoe that night with at least Clark bent on revenge.
The trial itself was marked by reluctant witnesses, three of whom were temporarily jailed for refusing to take the witness stand. A number of witnesses, including Harris, were given deals on pending federal drug cases in order to get them to testify at trial. The defense roundly criticized the prosecution for going down that route, and a pair of "alternate" jurors had told the press in the days leading up to the verdict that they were uncomfortable with that fact.
"This was a difficult case for prosecutors because their star witness is a convicted felon (Harris) who got a very good deal in order to testify," 9NEWS Legal Analyst Scott Robinson said.
The case lacked a lot of physical evidence, and the trial lacked a lot of the scientific evidence which typically occupies a lot of the jury's time during the course of a trial.
Clark will be sentenced on April 30 at 1:30 p.m. Habas said Thursday that she would allow a total of 20 people from both sides to speak in court or write letters.
Clark still faces even more legal trouble. Denver prosecutors have also charged him with first-degree murder in the death of a woman, Kalonniann Clark, no relation, who was about to testify in an attempted murder case. He faces life in prison in that case if convicted at trial.
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