OAKLAND — Authorities have finalized a deal with a former local gang member who became a key witness in a triple-murder case earlier this year.
Thanks to Gregg Fite Jr.’s testimony, 38-year-old Joseph Carroll was sentenced to multiple life sentences for killing three people and wounding several others in a series of gang-related shootings. Now Fite gets to walk, according to court records.
Fite was charged in 2018 with ordering the murder of Ngo Nguyen in 2009, which prosecutors say Carroll carried out. Fite ended up striking a deal with prosecutors to testify against Carroll in exchange for a lesser conviction, and ultimately, a dismissal, if he testified truthfully.
In late October, Fite’s murder case was formally dismissed, according to court records. A month later, on Nov. 21, his former friend and protégé, Carroll, was transferred to the state prison system, where — barring a successful appeal — he’ll live out the remainder of his life.
During a lengthy trial over the summer, a jury convicted Carroll of killing Ngo, 18, Nehemiah Lewis, 24, and Andrew Henderson Jr., 23. — and wounding several others — in a series of gang-related shootings from 2009 to 2010. Security during the trial was high, with deputies setting up a secondary metal detector to screen onlookers.
The police intercepted attempts to film or record witnesses, which are still being investigated for possible charges of witness tampering, according to court records.
When it was his turn to take the stand, Fite testified that Carroll was a younger kid who he “put on the corner” of an East Bay neighborhood, the Berkeley Scanner reported. Fite was part of something called the Waterfront gang, police say, but soon Carroll formed his own crew that allied with Fite’s gang.
Before he departed, Fite was asked why he decided to testify against his former friend, after a youth spent running the streets as a gang member and abiding by a code of silence. He said that by the time the cops caught up with him for the Nguyen murder, he had more to lose from going to prison.
“Frankly, I just got put up under enough pressure and I cracked,” Fite said, according to the Scanner.