By TERRI VERMEULEN KEITH | City News Service
A Hollywood producer who was convicted of first-degree murder for the drug overdose deaths of a model and her friend, along with charges that he sexually assaulted seven other women, was sentenced Wednesday to 146 years to life in prison.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter — who imposed the maximum sentence on 43-year-old David Brian Pearce — said the defendant was “the worst kind of criminal,” saying that he had been called several things including a con artist, a manipulator and a wolf during victim impact statements and telling Pearce that “all of them apply to you.”
Jurors deliberated about 2 1/2 days before finding Pearce guilty Feb. 4 of the two murder charges stemming from the deaths of 24-year-old model and aspiring actress Christy Giles and her 26-year-old friend Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, who were taken to separate Southern California hospitals about two hours apart on Nov. 13, 2021.
Giles was already dead when she was taken to Southern California Hospital in Culver City, while Cabrales-Arzola, an architect, was alive outside Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Hospital but in critical condition. Her family took her off life support later that month, a day before her 27th birthday.
The seven-man, five-woman jury also found Pearce guilty of three counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual penetration by use of force and one count each of rape of an unconscious person and sodomy by use of force — with all of the sexual assault charges involving crimes against seven women between 2007 and 2020.
Jurors also heard from five other women who alleged that they were sexually assaulted by Pearce in addition to the seven victims named in the sexual assault charges.
The jury was unable to reach a verdict on charges against co-defendant Brandt Walter Osborn, 45, who was facing two counts of being an accessory after the fact. The judge declared a mistrial on those charges after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked. Osborn, now 46, is awaiting a potential retrial.
Just before handing down the sentence on Pearce, the judge said his crimes dated back to 2005 and “aren’t isolated incidents.”
She noted that she had not seen genuine remorse from the defendant, saying he didn’t even have the courage to read his own statement or the decency to look at the victims’ family members and the sexual assault victims as they spoke in court.
In a statement read by defense attorney Tamara Binns, the defendant called what happened a “horrific tragedy” and recounted driving 82 mph in an attempt to get Giles to the hospital to try to save her life.
Pearce — who testified in his own defense and denied giving the two women the drugs that killed them — said in the statement that he is “not the evil, scary monster” that he has been portrayed as. He told the victims’ family members, “I’m so sorry for your loss, and I grieve every day.”
The defendant’s sister, Allison Pearce, who was next to speak in the downtown Los Angeles courtroom, called his behavior “horrific and disgusting.” She said she is embarrassed to call him her brother and wishes he was someone she had never known.
“There is no justification for what you have done,” she said, directly speaking to her brother. “It’s a shame you can’t accept the consequences for your actions … I will never, ever forgive you.”
The judge also heard statements from more than a dozen other people, including the victims’ family members and some of Pearce’s sexual assault victims.
Giles’ husband, Jan Cilliers, called his wife “my soulmate and the love of my life,” saying that her death shattered his life.
“I don’t feel like he has any remorse for what he did,” the victim’s husband said of Pearce.
Giles’ mother, Dusty, told the judge she believes Pearce is a “pure sociopath,” calling him a “wolf” at another point.
She said her family was in court to show that “she was somebody’s daughter … that she wasn’t a junkie,” and added that her family had been shattered by her daughter’s death.
In a letter read in court on her behalf, Cabrales-Arzola’s mother called the emptiness “so intense” and said she is “overwhelmed with the pain of a broken heart.” She said she wanted Pearce to know that she forgives him, while telling him that “what you did was very wrong” and that he let valuable time pass before seeking help.
One of the sexual assault victims told the judge that Pearce is a “predator” whose “actions have caused irreversible harm to so many,” and said he should never have a chance to walk free.
Another said Pearce’s actions have “changed my life forever,” adding that “no sentence can undo the harm.”
Some of the victims’ family members told the judge that they wanted Pearce to be sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, with the judge responding that he wasn’t eligible for that term given how the case was charged.
Outside court, Deputy District Attorney Catherine Mariano noted that the case was filed under prior District Attorney George Gascón’s administration and that the prosecution was “unable to file special circumstances allegations allowing for the case to be life without parole.” She said prosecutors would have had to go before a grand jury again once current District Attorney Nathan Hochman was elected and “would essentially have to start the process all over again” and have the sexual assault victims testify again if the prosecution had opted then to add a special circumstance allegation.
“In weighing those circumstances, we chose to continue with the indictment as it was in place, allowing for this very large sentence,” the prosecutor said.
She noted that jurors heard from 12 women about the sexual assaults, telling reporters that there were “additional victims that had come forward that weren’t able to be presented during trial.”
Pearce has remained behind bars since he was arrested in December 2021.
The prosecutor told jurors at the start of the trial that Pearce was a “sexual predator,” and said in her closing argument that there was no reason for Pearce’s DNA to be found on the two women, including under Cabrales-Arzola’s fingernails, if they weren’t drugged and then sexually assaulted.
The prosecutor said Pearce “knew the dangers of fentanyl,” but said he still gave fentanyl and GHB to Giles and Cabrales-Arzola “because he wanted to sexually assault them.”
Pearce’s trial attorney, Jeff Voll, countered that his client “didn’t give them drugs,” and urged jurors to acquit Pearce.
Osborn allegedly accompanied Pearce in a Toyota Prius with no license plates to the hospitals where Giles and Cabrales-Arzola were left.
Osborn’s attorney, Michael Artan, told jurors that the “just outcome would be that Brandt Osborn would be found not guilty on the two counts” with which he is charged. He questioned the accounts of two key prosecution witnesses, including Michael Ansbach, who was arrested along with Pearce and Osborn but never charged.
Ansbach testified that Pearce told him, “Dead girls don’t talk.”
The deaths of the two women were classified as homicides by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner, with toxicology reports finding multiple drugs present in both victims’ systems, according to the department.
Giles died of a mixture of cocaine, fentanyl, gamma-hydroxybutyric acid and ketamine, while Cabrales-Arzola died of multiple organ failure with cocaine, methylenedioxymethamphetamine (ecstasy) and other undetermined drugs found in her system.
“This is no accident, no mistake,” the prosecutor said, calling it an attempt by Pearce to “get away” with what he had done for years.
The deputy district attorney told jurors that Pearce and Osborn waited hours to leave the residence they shared on Olympic Boulevard in the Pico-Robertson district to take Giles to the hospital when she was already dead and then returned to their apartment and took Cabrales-Arzola to a different hospital about two hours later.
Pearce had met the two women at an after-hours rave in downtown Los Angeles, according to the prosecutor.
Pearce’s trial attorney countered that the prosecution had not met its burden to prove the case.
Voll questioned why Pearce would have given fentanyl to the women and Ansbach, who was “his buddy of 20 years,” and suggested to jurors that the drug may have instead been “accidentally ingested” after being mistaken for cocaine.
“They never found fentanyl in his house. They never found GHB,” Voll told the panel. ” … There’s no proof that Mr. Pearce got rid of anything.”
Voll also urged jurors to acquit Pearce of the sexual assault charges involving the other seven women, saying the majority did not go to a hospital or immediately report their allegations to law enforcement. He said some of the alleged victims didn’t come forward until they heard that Pearce was being charged in connection with the deaths.
In his rebuttal argument, Deputy District Attorney Seth Carmack told jurors that Pearce drugged the two women and Ansbach “because he didn’t want anybody to leave,” and alleged that he “was giving them drugs to facilitate the sexual assault.”
“The defendant is a rapist — and now he is a murderer,” Carmack said.
During the trial, jurors heard from both defendants.
Pearce said he “didn’t personally see” them consume any drugs after they returned to his residence.
The defendant disputed Ansbach’s claim that Pearce had given glasses of red wine to the two women and that Pearce had subsequently given him an energy drink mixed with vodka that “had a distinctly awful taste to it.”
Pearce also denied providing cocaine to either the women or Ansbach when they returned to the home, adding that Ansbach was filming an essential piece that they were working on together.
Pearce said he came back into the room to find Ansbach and the women had all passed out after he spent a minimum of 35 minutes bathing his dog and cleaning up after the dog had been left for about 12 hours in a bathroom.
“I assumed they just needed to sleep it off,” he said of the three, adding that it wasn’t uncommon for him to see people in that state at his residence.
Pearce told the jury that he picked Giles up and moved her to a spare bedroom and then picked up Cabrales-Arzola and took her to his own room, where he fell asleep.
“Were they breathing?” his attorney asked.
“Yes,” the defendant responded.
When asked if they appeared to be in pain, Pearce responded that they did not.
Under cross-examination, the defendant maintained that the two women were fully clothed when he moved them in his house and then to a Toyota Prius — which was driven to the two hospitals — and acknowledged that “my DNA was everywhere” when asked about DNA found on the two women.
In questioning by his trial attorney, Pearce denied sexually assaulting either of the two women.
Pearce also denied sexually assaulting the seven other women, along with five who also testified against him.
Pearce said he became concerned about Giles about noon that day, but acknowledged that 911 was not called. He testified that he and Osborn drove to a hospital hours later to seek medical treatment for her and they were directed to leave the hospital after he helped put Giles on a hospital gurney.
Pearce testified that he and Osborn subsequently returned home and grew concerned about Giles’ friend, who couldn’t be awakened. He recounted performing chest compressions and CPR on her and believing that she was in a “better situation.” He said he asked Osborn to look up a different hospital, Kaiser Permanente, because he believed it was closer.
He said it was “absolutely impossible” that a neighbor who lived downstairs from him could have heard one of the women moaning in pain that day as she had testified.
“One-hundred percent she’s wrong,” Pearce said under questioning by the prosecutor.
Pearce also denied telling Ansbach, “Dead girls don’t talk,” with Osborn saying when he was called to the stand in his own defense that he didn’t hear that comment.
Osborn told jurors he went to bed when the group arrived home and that he only heard Pearce ask if they would like some wine. He said Pearce called him that afternoon into the room where Giles had been left, saying that it looked like she wasn’t breathing.
Osborn testified that Pearce attempted to lift Giles up and that she “relieved herself all over him,” prompting Pearce to take a quick shower before leaving for Cedars-Sinai Medical Center as Ansbach testified earlier during the trial that he had suggested.
He said Pearce subsequently “freaked” and said, “We can’t bring her here,” after arriving at Cedars-Sinai.
“I said, ‘This girl needs medical attention!’” Osborn said, his voice growing emotional as he told jurors that Pearce told him to get back in the car.
Osborn said the two drove with Giles to the hospital in Culver City, where a security employee saw the back of the vehicle and “asked where the (license) plates were.”
“I was dumbfounded,” Osborn told jurors, explaining that he had no idea that the license plates had been taken off the vehicle. He said he called Pearce “an idiot.”
Pearce was initially charged in December 2021 with sexually assaulting four women, with prosecutors subsequently adding sexual assault charges involving three other women. The District Attorney’s Office subsequently filed the murder and drug charges before taking the case to the grand jury, which returned the indictment.
Last month, the judge denied the defense’s motion for a new trial that contended there was insufficient evidence for Pearce’s conviction on the two murder charges and that jurors shouldn’t have heard about “highly prejudicial and uncharged sexual misconduct.”