Bey, 26, is charged with murder - he could be sentenced to death if convicted of first-degree murder - in the Sept. 24, 2000, ambush shooting of Moses Williams, 23, as Williams sat in the front seat of a car in South Philadelphia with other members of the entourage of an aspiring South Philly rapper.
Bey is also charged with the Dec. 26, 2000, shooting and wounding of that rapper, Duane "Wiz DeNiro" Clinkscales. Prosecutors also alleged that Bey engineered the Jan. 18 murder of Chante Wright, 23, a federally protected witness who was in the car with Williams when he was killed.
Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega told the jury in his closing that the events leading to Williams' murder were part "ghetto honor" and part rivalry between Bey's faction on South 23d Street near Tasker Street and Williams' on South 27th Street. Williams disrespected Bey's brother, Vega said.
"Someone got disrespected, so someone got killed for a stupid reason," Vega said.
But Vega said Bey went further, trying to eliminate anyone who might incriminate him in Williams' death.
"All the pain and hurt in this room are from him, his gun and his trigger finger," Vega said before a courtroom packed with Bey's and Williams' families. "Tell him the war stops here."
Santaguida argued that there was no physical evidence - guns or bullets, blood, fingerprints or DNA - to tie Bey to any of the violence in the case.
"You're not here to determine there's too much violence in this city," Santaguida said. "Absolutely [there is]. Senseless."
Santaguida told the jurors that "if you review the evidence, it's going to be saturated with reasonable doubt."
