MARTINEZ — An Oakland man who spent two years in jail awaiting trial has been acquitted of murder in connection with a 2021 Concord shooting and a police investigation centering on a large extended family.
Viliami Ofanoa, 39, had been accused of murdering 26-year-old Robert Franklin Currier in a March 2021 shooting, but on June 12 a jury found him not guilty of murder, while convicted him of a firearm possession offense.
Ofanoa was then sentenced to a year in jail for the gun charge, time he’d already served behind bars. He then walked out of jail with about 10 days to celebrate his birthday as a free man for the first time in two years.
Eli Miller, an attorney with the county’s Alternate Defender’s Office, argued in court that Ofanoa was innocent.
“This was a sad and difficult case, and I know the jurors worked hard to carefully and objectively examine every piece of evidence presented to them,” Miller said in an email. “I am grateful for their effort and confident they reached the right verdict.”
Ofanoa was arrested two days after the March 1, 2021 homicide but then police released him without charges. Two years later, he was charged with murder and taken back into custody. Police said in a news release that the case was based on a “detailed analysis of phone records, DNA evidence, and license plate reader data.” But all three of those things more or less amounted to what Ofanoa readily admitted to the cops; that he was present in an SUV that carried Currier’s killer to and away from the scene.
Ofanoa gave a police interview where he stated that the real killer had pointed a gun at him and forced him to drive around Concord, then told him to stop and left the vehicle. During the other man’s absence, Ofanoa said he heard shots and that he drove away after the man got back in the car.
But authorities didn’t believe Ofanoa’s story. He was charged with “personally and intentionally” killing Currier, who was shot a few minutes after midnight on the 1100 block of Concord Avenue in Concord. Police identified the SUV as the suspect’s vehicle, and identified Ofanoa as the driver based on cellphone records and a photo from the Benicia Bridge Tollbooth, court records show.
Police interviewed a large group of Ofanoa’s immediate and extended family. Cellphone records indicated three people were present for the shooting, including Ofanoa. But when the other suspects and their family members were interviewed, no one’s story aligned perfectly. Some provided alibis, stating Ofanoa was in Richmond and never left on the night of March 4, 2021, or the following early morning, according to court records.
Another man said “it wasn’t me” but refused to implicate anyone. One witness said he and two others went to Oakland, not Concord, that night, but slipped up at one point and gave a vague answer when asked where in Concord they’d gone, authorities said. Another witness said the shooter had on a face mask, according to court records.
Two other suspects were arrested, but Ofanoa was the only one to face charges. Now, with his acquittal, the case is right back where it was in 2021, except with one fewer person who could be brought to court over it.