Verdict in triple murder trial against alleged Berkeley gang member

OAKLAND — An alleged Berkeley gang member was found guilty Thursday of killing three people and wounding several others about 15 years ago, in a trial marred by allegations of witness intimidation and security lapses.

As the verdict was being read, Joseph Carroll pounded on the table and wept openly – sometimes so loudly that his wails drowned out the court reporter's voice as she read the jury's decision. At one point he looked back at the public gallery and said, “Mommy, it wasn't me.”

“I didn't kill those people. I didn't do it. I didn't do it,” the 38-year-old shouted into the courtroom. “Why did you do this to me?”

Meanwhile, his mother also left the courtroom, but turned to the jury and said: “You have convicted an innocent man. That is what you have done.”

The jury found him guilty of two counts of first-degree murder, but reduced one count from first-degree murder to second-degree murder. He was acquitted of one count of attempted murder. His attorneys declined to comment after the hearing.

The conviction is the culmination of a trial that spanned nearly two months and tested the limits of the East Bay legal system as a slew of witnesses on the stand changed their statements, recanted their testimony or sat in stony silence as Carroll watched in the courtroom.

The verdict means Carroll will have to spend at least 25 years in prison, but may have to spend the rest of his life behind bars.

Carroll faced three murder charges and a number of other crimes in connection with four shootings between 2009 and 2011, all of which stemmed from a bitter rivalry between suspected gang members in Berkeley – where Carroll lived – and North Oakland.

The first shooting occurred on April 23, 2009, when Carroll drove into North Oakland and fired an assault rifle at men along 45th Street, according to authorities. The drive-by shooting killed one man, Nguyen Ngo, and seriously wounded another.

A little over a year later, on May 3, 2010, authorities alleged that Carroll ambushed two North Oakland men because he feared one of them was dating the mother of his child. Investigators later found at least 17 bullet casings at the scene.

The following month, prosecutors suspected Carroll of shooting Nehemiah Lewis, a man Carroll believed had witnessed the previous murder.

The last shooting occurred on April 13, 2011. Authorities said Carroll was the gunman in a drive-by shooting at another car carrying four people, killing Andrew Henderson Jr. No one else was injured.

He was arrested in 2017 and tried for the murders a year later. Since then, authorities say, his case has been marred by attempts to intimidate witnesses.

Carroll's relatives were caught illegally photographing witnesses in the courtroom and posting a livestream of the trial on Instagram. As a result, security in the courtroom was extremely tightened – additional metal detectors were placed outside the courtroom door and those present were prohibited from bringing anything other than pen and paper.

Despite those restrictions, a relative of Carroll's was caught bringing a 65-gigabyte audio recorder hidden in a pen to a July 1 court hearing, authorities said. The woman claimed it was an accident and she believed it was just a pen.

Several witnesses told investigators they were too afraid to appear in court, and police had to track down and arrest at least two witnesses for failing to comply with subpoenas. During one hearing, a witness was charged with contempt of court after staring blankly at the prosecutor and refusing to answer a single question or give his name.

The prosecutors and Carroll's lawyers also exchanged barbs toward the end of the trial.

“Let's get this straight — let's expose the lies and the insidious nature of the prosecution in this case and expose it for what it really is,” Carroll's attorney, William Welch, said during his closing argument. He implored jurors not to give in to a complex web of “rumors and lies” that led to Carroll's arrest.

His words were merely an attempt to turn the case into a “popularity contest,” replied prosecutor Natasha Jontulovich.

“You were not exactly subtly asked to disobey the law,” Jontulovich told the jury. “This is a diversionary tactic.”