Fatal bank accomplice acts out

"I refuse to contract with the court, I refuse to contract with my attorney Ray Buenaventura ... I have not committed a crime," a shackled Lui stated repeatedly as Forcum tried to impose his sentence.

Buenaventura stood calmly by while correcting passages in a probation report, even as his client continually instructed him not to say anything to the judge.

Lui demanded to be unhandcuffed and walk out of the court a free man. The banter escalated when Lui insisted "I'm not going anywhere."

Forcum quickly, retorted, "Yes you are. You're going to state prison."

After minutes of telling Lui to take his protestations to an appeals court, a seemingly exasperated Forcum finally asked, "Would you like to me to have somebody put duct tape around your mouth?"

Liu eventually stood quietly during sentencing after Forcum promised to allot him five minutes to speak at the end of the hearing.

His final outburst harkened back to the lengthy negotiations he compelled to even reach a plea bargain. On May 31, Lui pleaded no contest to 17 felonies in return for a stipulated sentence with the chance of parole after its completion. However, he first added his own language about "being the agent of another." Forcum demanded the additions be removed - an order Lui initially refused. Eventually, the extra sentences were scratched out and the form signed. Yesterday, Lui said that made the offer invalid and proof he was coerced to participate.

Liu, the getaway driver, is the only one of three murder and robbery suspects who never entered the Wells Fargo Bank where Martel was fatally shot. Under the law, though, he was considered just as responsible and could have received life in prison without parole if convicted by a jury.

End of a legal saga

Yesterday's hearing ended Liu's case but also completes a judicial saga marked by unexpected twists over the last three years and which cost upwards of $2 million to incarcerate five people.

On Tuesday, accomplices Sikai Telea, 28, and Amu "Billy" Wynn, 29, were sentenced to life in prison without parole and 40 years respectively.

Telea, Liu and Wynn were allegedly part of the robbery crew headed by confessed killer Seti Christopher Scanlan.

Between August and November 2002, a robbery crew led by Scanlan criss-crossed the Bay Area. The group robbed 10 restaurants and convenience stores in five cities, shot a clerk needlessly in the leg and led Mountain View police on a high-speed chase. That pursuit left a bullet in the cheek of Officer Cary Sheuh and eventually led to the capture of two accomplices.

The pinnacle of the spree, though, was the Oct. 11, 2002 takeover robbery of the Burlingame Avenue bank. In under one minute on that Friday afternoon, Telea shot one employee in the shoulder and Scanlan fired a .40 caliber Glock bullet toward Martel as she stood in her office doorway. She crawled into an adjoining bathroom and hid with a coworker while waiting for the violence to end. At one point, Scanlan walked into the bathroom stall and looked down at Martel before leaving her bleeding in the arms of a co-worker.

Martel died hours later at Stanford Medical Center, leaving behind a husband and two young sons. Her co-worker survived but never regained full mobility.

On Nov. 1, 2002, in Mountain View, the three men plus Semisi Umufuke robbed a Carl's Jr. restaurant and convenience store simultaneously before leading police on a high-speed shoot-out. The chase ended when the men's SUV, driven by Liu, crashed in East Palo Alto. Again, Liu did not fire a weapon but the prosecution claimed his reckless driving into another vehicle is just as dangerous an activity.

Telea and Scanlan fled the scene and the ringleader sparked a statewide manhunt. He surprised everybody weeks later by surrendering to an Oregon store clerk. He surprised them again the following spring by confessing to a dozen felonies, including first-degree murder, and asking for death. Last summer, after two weeks of deliberations, the jury deadlocked 9-3 in favor of capital punishment. When prosecutors considered retrying him, Scanlan toyed with being his own attorney. They eventually let his sentence default to multiple life sentences without parole.

Although Scanlan admitted shooting Martel, all involved in the robbery - even Liu who remained in the car outside - are legally culpable under California law.

Taking responsibility

Yesterday, Lui insisted he was not guilty because he stayed outside the crime scenes. Forcum, who oversaw the hearings of all defendants but Scanlan, remained unmoved.

"It is easy for someone like yourself not to take responsibility for what you've done," Forcum said. "You facilitated the evil design of the people who went into the bank and killed a woman."

All men pleaded not guilty initially but only Telea underwent a full trial.

He was convicted of all counts the day Liu accepted the plea. Earlier this year, Umufuke pleaded no contest to a lesser handful of charges and is serving a seven-year prison term.

'As good as we've gotten'

Prosecutor Wagstaffe was pleased not only with the number of defendants convicted in the case but also the severity of the sentences.

"This is as good as we've gotten in the county," he said.

He roughly estimates the cost of trying Scanlan and his group between $1. 5 million and $2 million. Each defendant had court-appointed counsel and Scanlan, facing death, was represented by two attorneys. The cost also included sending multiple investigators on both sides to American Samoa, the home country of Scanlan and Telea.

Michelle Durand can be reached by e-mail: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 104. What do you think of this story? Send a letter to the editor: letters@smdailyjournal.com.