Man Accused of 2013 Las Vegas Strip Fireball Found Guilty

Members of the jury on Monday pronounced Ammar Asim Faruq Harris guilty of killing three people in a shooting and crash that took place in February 2013 on the Las Vegas Strip. As the verdicts were read out in the Clark County District Court, the accused remained inexpressive and still. All that remains to be seen now is whether Harris will be awarded the death penalty for his role in the incident that took place in the casino district. The state court jury will be asked to decide on this matter.

Dozens of prosecution witnesses were called upon to provide a week of testimonies. Jurors heard these testimonies but did not hear from the accused himself although Harris had, in fact, pleaded not guilty to one attempt to murder, three murder and seven discharge of a weapon charges.

Throughout the trial, lawyers of the 29-year-old Harris have stated he was that he was defending himself in the incident that took the life of aspiring rapper Kenneth Wayne Cherry Jr, who was behind the wheel of his Maserati, and wounding his passenger, Freddy Walters. Harris shot at the sports car from a Range Rover and caused the sports car to crash into a taxi. The taxi ignited and turned into a fireball and killed its cab driver Michael Boldon as well as its passenger Sandra Sutton-Wasmund. Another five people were injured in this incident which turned rapidly into a chain reaction of crashes involving several other vehicles.

According to prosecutors Pamela Weckerly and David Stanton, Harris should be regarded as a “cold and calculating” murderer. It was also suggested by Stanton that Harris believed Cherry to be someone whom he had had an altercation with at an earlier concert in a nightclub in the Aria resort. Video clips from the night show Harris’s Range Rover and Maserati involved in a dangerous chase in between stoplights on Las Vegas Boulevard.

Several angles from the videos also show what look to be gunshots being fired from the Range Rover prior to crash that took place in front of the Caesars Palace and Flamingo resorts on that fateful night. The black SUV also appears to be speeding away following the crash. Harris was arrested a week following the crash in Los Angeles.

While jurors heard the recorded jail telephone conversation in which Harris stated to a friend that he believed someone was shooting at him that night, they were also aware that police had not found any weapons in the Maserati to support his claim.

This is not the first altercation in which Harris has been involved. In 2013, Harris was sentenced to 16 years to life in prison. He was convicted for robbing and raping an 18-year-old woman in Las Vegas in June 2010. At present, this case is being appealed. In 2004, Harris was convicted in South Carolina for possession of a stolen weapon with the intent to sell. In 2004, he was also convicted of a marijuana possession charge in Atlanta. Earlier this year, Harris was convicted of bribing a Nevada prison guard.