Retrial in strangling of former Raider's daughter ends with first-degree murder decision

The former Project 90 counselor accused of strangling his girlfriend twice during an argument after a drug relapse was convicted of first-degree murder yesterday, three years after an appellate court overturned his original conviction in the death of a former Oakland Raider’s daughter.

Jurors took just a day before finding Mohammed Haroon Ali, 36, guilty in the Feb. 15, 1999 death of Tracey Biletnikoff, 20. They began deliberating late Tuesday morning and returned a verdict Wednesday afternoon but it was not read until yesterday morning.

Ali met the verdict with little emotion while the Biletnikoff family smiled, according to those in attendance. Her father, Fred Biletnikoff, is a former Oakland Raider Hall of Famer.

Jurors spent a weighty amount of time with both the family and attorneys after the reading, sharing that they thought Ali "was a liar” when he claimed not remembering choking Biletnikoff although they felt he was truthful during a police interview in which he recalled a struggle and holding her up in the air by her neck, said District Attorney Steve Wagstaffe.

To reach their decision, jurors had to believe either that Ali deliberately meant to kill Tracey Biletnikoff or murdered her while robbing her of car keys she refused to release. The defense had argued for voluntary manslaughter, saying Ali didn’t make a rational decision to kill and had been provoked by name calling and influenced by mental illness.

Wagstaffe said jurors told him they reached the first-degree murder conclusion quickly, agreeing it was premeditated although there was no a consensus on the theory of murder during a robbery.

"I am ecstatic that this long nightmare will come to a conclusion for the families. Thirteen years is a long time to sit and wait,” Wagstaffe said.

Ali strangled Biletnikoff inside an office at Friendship Hall, a substance abuse meeting place where the two went after he confessed a relapse on drugs and alcohol. He used a Project 90 van to move her body to Cañada College in Redwood City and fled to Mexico in her car. He was apprehended at the border returning to the United States.

He was convicted of first-degree murder in 2001 but in 2009, the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals overturned the conviction, ruling that Wagstaffe had improperly removed at least one black individual from the jury pool for racial discrimination reasons. Wagstaffe, now the elected district attorney, maintained the ruling was incorrect and said yesterday the second conviction gave him a sense of "satisfaction.”

At a June 14 sentencing hearing, Judge Barbara Mallach may reaffirm Ali’s previously imposed sentence of 55 years to life with credit for time already served but she does have some discretion. Ali has already served a nine-year portion of the term imposed for kidnapping at knifepoint a former fiancee after she broke off their engagement.

Ali was on probation for that crime when he was sent to Project 90, a rehabilitation program, after testing dirty for drugs. The couple met in 1997 when Biletnikoff was in a different recovery program and Ali eventually became a part-time counselor with Project 90.

The weekend before their confrontation, Ali drank beer with some friends in San Francisco followed by using crack, heroin and crank. After his confession, Biletnikoff told him he would have to begin the program over and refused to give him her car keys so that, according to the prosecution, he could score more drugs and escape a probation urine test the following day.

Defense attorney Peter Goldscheider, and Ali in his own testimony, said Biletnikoff called him a "loser” and compared him to an ex-boyfriend. He said she was also upset he had contact with a pregnant ex-girlfriend. Ali testified he put his hands on Biletnikoff’s shoulders to move her from the door and next remembers seeing her on the ground with white foam coming from her mouth.

But forensic experts said scratches and bruises on Biletnikoff’s throat indicated a struggle and said she would have taken at least three to five minutes to die.

Wagstaffe told jurors that Ali tightened a black T-shirt around Biletnikoff’s neck to finish the killing but the defense argued he had added the ligature after her death as part of his attempts to make the death look like a sex crime.

Ali moved Biletnikoff’s body in a Project 90 van first to his sister’s home where he pleaded with his nephew for money and then to Cañada College in Redwood City where he removed her pants and dragged the body down the side of a hill, leaving her legs spread apart, before fleeing the country.

Ali did not testify in his first trial and, according to Goldscheider, had not yet been diagnosed with bipolar disorder. A prosecution psychiatric expert testified that the condition would not allow Ali to remember details before and after but not during the actual act of choking.

During the trial, which opened in late January, the prosecution also called several of Ali’s former girlfriends, including one he kidnapped twice and another whom he was seeing at the same time as Biletnikoff, to establish a pattern of violence. After the verdict, Wagstaffe said that attitude is the reason he hopes Mallach imposes the maximum sentence.

"I don’t think women are safe if he is free,” Wagstaffe said.

Ali remains in custody without bail.

Michelle Durand can be reached by email: michelle@smdailyjournal.com or by phone: (650) 344-5200 ext. 102.