3 Men Guilty in Century City Murder for Hire

Three men were convicted today of first-degree murder for their roles in the stabbing death of a woman who was attacked in a Century City parking garage in a plot masterminded by her estranged husband.

The Los Angeles Superior Court jury also found Steven Vicente Simmons, 26, Gabriel Jay Marquez, 50, and Jose Luis Moya, 54, guilty of conspiracy to commit murder, according to Deputy District Attorney Tannaz Mokayef.

The charges stemmed from a July 28, 2008, attack on Pamela Fayed, who was stabbed 13 times as she approached her SUV in a parking garage at Watt Tower.

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Jurors also found true the special circumstance allegation of murder while lying in wait against the three defendants, along with the special circumstance allegation of murder for financial gain against Moya, who had worked as a ranch hand for the woman’s estranged husband, James Fayed, at his Ventura County ranch.

James Fayed -- who was tried separately -- was convicted in May 2011 of murder and conspiracy for masterminding the 44-year-old woman’s killing. He was sentenced to death in November 2011 by Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Kathleen Kennedy, who noted that Fayed was nearby as his wife was being “brutally and brazenly” murdered, and that others reacted to the victim’s “blood-curdling screams.”

“That is one cold, calculated human being, Mr. James Fayed -- doesn’t feel anything,” the judge said.

Kennedy added that surveillance video showed Fayed outside the parking garage “totally immune to the screams of his wife, the mother of his child.”

“He did nothing to warn her, to protect her, to call off the dogs, so to speak,” the judge said.

The Fayeds were in the midst of a bitter divorce, and the killing occurred just after the two met with their criminal attorneys as a result of a federal investigation into the couple’s gold-trading business.

• City News Service