Jury finds parking space killing was voluntary manslaughter
Bay City News Service
January 22, 2009
SAN FRANCISCO — A San Francisco Superior Court jury has convicted a San Francisco man of manslaughter for stabbing a 19-year-old man to death in 2006, a crime that investigators said started with a fight over a parking space.
The Sept. 16, 2006, stabbing outside a party in the city's Richmond District left 19-year-old Boris Albinder, a Pacifica man and the son of Russian immigrants, dead.
Authorities said another man, Igor Litvak, had been saving a parking space for Albinder outside the party in the 3900 block of Geary
Boulevard, when a van pulled up and tried to take the space.
Litvak refused to give it up, and the driver of the van ran into him, authorities said. Then the occupants of the van got out and assaulted him.
Albinder pulled up at the same time and got involved in the fight and was stabbed, according to police. He died later at the hospital.
Two men, Sarith Soun and Pounleau Chea, both of San Francisco, were arrested following the incident.
Soun, now 27, was believed to have been the one who stabbed Albinder and on Wednesday, was found guilty of voluntary manslaughter.
Chea, also 27, the driver of the van, was found guilty of a lesser charge of misdemeanor assault for using his vehicle against Litvak.
Prosecutors had charged Soun with murder, and Chea with being an accessory to murder and felony assault with a deadly weapon.
"This case was a tragedy for everyone involved," said Public Defender Jeff Adachi, who represented Chea.
Adachi said his client spent 13 months in jail on a murder charge before prosecutors reduced the charge to accessory to murder.
"It's been a long and tortuous path for Mr. Chea," he said, adding that he felt the case should never have been brought against his client.
Adachi said he argued during the four-month trial that Chea's involvement in the fight was self-defense, that both groups of men had been trading punches.
"No one knew that there was a knife involved," said Adachi. "Everyone thought it was a fight," until Albinder collapsed from the knife
wound, he said.
Adachi said Soun's attorney Mark Rosenbush had also argued self-defense on the part of Soun.
Rosenbush did not return calls for comment Thursday.
The case returns to court Monday, when according to Adachi, the jury will weigh a separate gang allegation against Soun.
Prosecutors declined comment on the case Thursday, saying it had yet to be fully resolved.
