San Lorenzo Man Convicted of Attempted Murder a Second Time for 2009 Shooting

A San Lorenzo man was convicted today of attempted murder for shooting a man at a drunken party in San Leandro six years ago after the victim argued with the shooter’s girlfriend. The verdict after three days of deliberation marks the second time Jeremy Millbrook, who’s now 25 but was only 18 at the time, has been convicted of attempted murder for shooting Sione Manoa, who was 20 at the time, when he shot him at the party on Dec. 19, 2009.

At Millbrook’s first trial in 2011, he was convicted of one count of premeditated attempted murder and two counts of assault with a firearm for shooting Manoa and his friend, Matthew Galvan, and was sentenced to 35 years to life in state prison. But in January 2014, a state appeals court overturned the attempted murder conviction, although it kept his assault convictions intact. The appellate court said the judge at Millbrook’s first trial should have instructed jurors that they had the option of convicting Millbrook of the lesser charge of attempted manslaughter, instead of attempted murder, if they found that Millbrook had acted in the heat of passion because he’d been blinded by anger at Manoa’s verbal attacks and hostility.

Prosecutor Butch Ford told jurors in his closing argument on Monday that Millbrook should be convicted of attempted murder because he believes he intended to kill Manoa by shooting him in close quarters during a heated argument at the party. Ford said the bullet fired by Millbrook passed through the hand of Galvan, who was trying to prevent the argument from escalating into a fight, and penetrated Manoa’s chest.

But Millbrook’s lawyer, William DuBois, said Millbrook should be found not guilty of attempted murder because he wasn’t trying to kill Manoa. DuBois said the facts about the incident aren’t completely clear because most people who were at the party were drunk or high on drugs but he thinks that Millbrook only wanted to get Manoa to back off and was so high on marijuana that he didn’t know that he still had a bullet in the chamber of his gun.

Referring to Millbrook, DuBois said, “If the defendant had intended to kill, he would have pulled the trigger more than once.” Manoa, who weighed 235 pounds at the time, had played football at Mt. Eden High School in Hayward and Laney College in Oakland and planned to play at San Jose State University the next fall. But he was seriously injured in the incident and never played football again.

Ford said Manoa, who had at least several drinks, is “ashamed” of some of the things he said at the party but he wasn’t going to injure or kill Millbrook’s girlfriend, Jennifer Diaz. Ford said he believes it’s clear that Manoa’s exchange of words with Diaz and other women who told him to leave the party “was just an argument.” But DuBois said Manoa “was the aggressor” in the incident and was “loud, aggressive, drunk and chest-pumping.”

DuBois told jurors today that he doesn’t think Millbrook should be convicted of either attempted manslaughter or attempted murder because he doesn’t believe that Millbrook intended to kill Manoa. The party was hosted by Fernanda Placencia, who worked at the Target store in Hayward and invited many of her co-workers, including Manoa and Galvan, who worked as security guards at the store.

Millbrook is scheduled to be sentenced by Alameda County Superior Court Judge Jon Rolefson on April 1.

By Bay City News

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