While they admit a
fight broke out between a group of friends and bouncers at the
Embassy nightclub, it was the bouncers who set off the fracas,
two friends of Oscar Rosa told jurors in the Natick man's murder
trial yesterday.
Rosa, 21, is charged
with first-degree murder of Craig Viera, a bouncer at the club
who was stabbed in the abdomen on Nov. 26, 2006, following an
altercation between Rosa and a group of friends and the club's
security staff. Viera of Framingham, who also worked at Gold's
Gym in Natick, died 12 days later on Dec. 8.
While the club's
security staff had earlier testified that Rosa and several
friends were ejected from the club after attempting to sneak
into the VIP area and trying to assault security staff, Damien
Benitez described a different scene under questioning from
Suffolk County Assistant District Attorney Rahsaan Hall
yesterday.
"We were actually
in the VIP area after a certain time," Benitez said.
"Eventually, one of the bouncers came to us and he told us we
had to leave. I tried to convince him we'd already been there
for 10 minutes, and the club was almost (closing), why can't we
chill out? He wasn't buying it."
Minutes later,
Benitez said, his friend Okland Lopez climbed onto a small
platform to dance with two girls, but was roughly dragged off
the several-feet-high area.
"Somebody came
from behind and grabbed him by his shirt and pulled him off ...
the speaker," Benitez said. "Once he got on the ground, we both
looked back to see it was a bouncer, and he got a little angry."
It was that rough
treatment, Benitez said, that sparked an argument between Lopez
and several other friends, including Rosa. The disturbance drew
other bouncers, and the group was eventually ejected from the
club.
As the group made
its way to the exit, Benitez testified, one of the bouncers
pushed Lopez, touching off a brawl between the group of friends
and security staff. He said several of the group were restrained
in choke holds.
Once outside the
club, Benitez insisted he never saw Rosa stab Viera.
"Were there any
punches thrown?" Hall asked.
"No, just words,"
Benitez replied.
"Did you see who
stabbed Craig Viera?" Hall asked. "Did you know anybody had a
knife? Did you know if Oscar had a knife?"
"No," Benitez
replied. "If he did, I didn't know."
Another friend of
Rosa's, Federico Fraticelli, was called as a defense witness,
but contradicted parts of Benitez's testimony on
cross-examination.
In contrast to
Benitez, Fraticelli testified he never saw Rosa outside the
club, and didn't see Rosa being arrested, despite going with
Benitez to retrieve his car in a garage near where the arrest
took place. It wasn't until later that night he realized Rosa
had been arrested.
"I met up with
Okland, said, 'Are you all right?' and left," Fraticelli said.
Also on the stand
yesterday was Boston Police Sgt. Edward Gillespie, who testified
to taking photographs of cuts on Rosa's hands following his
arrest. Those photographs, however, were lost when another
officer re-formatted the memory card in the camera.
Rosa's trial will
resume today in Suffolk Superior Court.
