A Foster City man who shot and wounded two other men during an argument over noise has been found not guilty of two counts of attempted murder in San Mateo County Superior Court.
Jesse David Wilson, 41, was also found not guilty of two lesser charges of attempted voluntary manslaughter. The jury of 10 women and two men deadlocked on five remaining counts of assault with a deadly weapon, and Judge John Grandsaert declared a mistrial on those charges.
Wilson did not react when the verdicts were read this morning. He was arrested on July 9, 2010, hours after he shot Steve Dimond and Anthony Cook outside his ground-floor unit at the Beach Cove Apartments. During the two-week trial, Wilson testified that he had acted in self-defense that night, and that he had gone outside with a .38-caliber handgun because he heard a woman scream and what sounded like a fight.
Shortly after midnight, Cook, Dimond, their wives, and a friend had decided to go boating on the lagoon after drinking at a concert in Foster City. A kayak carrying three of the revelers overturned, causing one of the women to scream. A neighbor of Wilson's who is Asian went outside to ask the boating party to quiet down. He was chased back inside his apartment under a barrage of racial slurs, according to defense attorney William Locke.
Wilson armed himself and went outside to see if someone needed help, Locke said. When the boating party saw that Wilson had a gun, they rushed him to try to disarm him, according to Locke. Wilson fired the gun twice during the fight that followed.
Dimond was shot in the back and suffered a collapsed lung, and Cook was shot in the abdomen. Both men survived, and testified that Wilson had shot them before they started to punch him and beat him to the ground. Wilson suffered a broken orbital bone and multiple cuts and bruises.
Wilson, Locke and deputy district attorney Brian Donnellan will be back in court on Feb. 22 to determine what will be done regarding the five assault charges on which the jury deadlocked.
--- Bay City News
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