Already a victim of two shootings and reduced to avoiding local restaurants for fear of running into hostile rivals, a Red Deer drug dealer had plenty of motive to order the killing of Brandon Neil Prevey, a Crown prosecutor told court on Wednesday.
“This appears to be a shot-or-be-shot scenario that developed,” said prosecutor Jason Snider in closing arguments before Justice Kirk Sisson in Red Deer Court of Queen’s Bench.
Christopher Martin Fleig, 28, is on trial for first-degree murder, accused of organizing a gangland-style hit on Prevey, 29, in the early morning hours of April 5, 2009. Prevey was parked on Ibbotson Close about 3 a.m. when another car drove up and a man in the passenger seat sprayed him with bullets. Hit a number of times, Prevey died at the scene. A female passenger escaped uninjured.
The 3 1/2-week trial has now wrapped up and Sisson is expected to render his decision next Wednesday.
Snider said safety was the main reason Fleig decided to do something about Prevey, who with another rival, Nick Soto, had made it known they were out to get Fleig. In opening its case, the Crown suggested Soto may have been the intended victim.
In testimony earlier this week, Fleig said he had been shot twice at his Calgary home, although he expressed doubt Soto was involved. Fleig was hit in the back of the left shoulder in the first shooting in late 2008 or early 2009. A day later he was shot a second time, the hollow-point bullet shattered a bone in his arm.
Snider also pointed to evidence that Fleig had a falling out with the Crazy Dragons gang and was involved in business dealings with the rival Fresh Off The Boat gang, known for its violence.
“How could he have credibility in this ultra-violent gang without dealing with people trying to kill him?”
Snider said testimony from two drug dealing associates of Fleig’s, Christopher Lloyd Quinton and Ian Russell Hunt, provide corroborating evidence he was behind the killing. One said Fleig had paid a man, Pedro Julio Saenz, $20,000 to do the shooting. Another said Fleig identified the driver of the car as another drug associate and refused to sell the gun that was supposedly used in the crime.
Fleig also told police he knew Prevey was going to be killed. Later on the stand, he contradicted that story, saying the first inkling he had of Prevey’s murder was when Saenz told him about it as he gave him a lift back to Calgary hours after the shooting.
He also initially told police he could not discuss his involvement, but on the stand said he was not involved at all. He dismissed as “idiotic”, testimony that he used walkie talkies to order the hit, while parked a couple of blocks away.
However, he told an associate that the shooter and driver were wearing masks. A mask was seen in Fleig’s car at one point and then later recovered in Saenz’s vehicle.
Defence lawyer Allan Fay said there is no physical evidence linking Fleig to the crime.
The evidence of Hunt and Quinton is “not worthy of belief,” he said, adding they contradicted each other and other Crown witnesses on key points.
Fay pointed out in an initial interview with police that Quinton, who was with Fleig in his truck the night of the murder, made no mention of the walkie talkies supposedly used to order the shooting. Quinton also didn’t mention at first a phonecall he said he got from Fleig talking about disposing of a gun.
Hunt and Quinton, who had their own drug-related troubles with the justice system, testified against Fleig for “personal advantage,” he said.
Fay also questioned why the men waited for months before telling police about what they knew of the shooting. And when Quinton agreed to collect evidence on Fleig for police, he was unable to come up with any worthwhile information linking him to the crime, he added.
Fleig himself steadfastly denied he was involved in the shooting in all his statements.
The evidence in the case “at best raises suspicions” that Fleig was involved, but does not prove his guilt beyond a reasonable doubt, Fay said.
pcowley@www.reddeeradvocate.com