First witnesses will take the stand Monday in Mark De Simone murder trial

The defense in the murder trial of Mark De Simone doesn’t disagree with the prosecution on much, Assistant Public Defender Deborah Macaulay said in court Friday.

She agrees that De Simone was holding the gun that went off and killed Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales at an Excursion Inlet cabin on May 15, 2016 during a hunting trip, Macaulay said during her opening statement.

“The prosecution will tell you that Mr. Rosales was hit two times by a gun that went off that my client was holding. That’s all true,” Macaulay said during her four-minute opening statement. “The who, the what, the when, the where, it’s all true. We won’t dispute it.”

She said she even agrees that De Simone told another person on the hunting trip that he shot Rosales, which was alleged both in the original indictment and in the prosecution’s opening statement. That’s where the similarities with the prosecution’s case stop, she said. The how and the why, she said, will differ.

Macaulay added that she will call a forensic pathologist and gun experts, the latter of whom will delve into research about unintentional gunshots. During jury questioning, Macaulay asked jurors various questions about where they stood on firearm training and reckless use of guns.

Assistant District Attorney Amy Paige, who gave a 21-minute opening statement prior to Macaulay’s on Friday, painted a picture of a hunting trip that went from relaxed to tense. De Simone was on the trip, she said, because he knew Bill Young, the owner of the cabins who also owned the Jewel Box in downtown Juneau. De Simone was doing a little bit of work at the jewelry store at the time, Paige said, which was also when Rosales was the head jeweler there.

Paige said the witnesses she’ll bring to the stand will allege that Rosales came to join them later on in the trip, and that something changed with De Simone once they told him Rosales was coming.

“Evidence will show that after he learned that information, Mr. De Simone’s demeanor changed,” Paige told the jury. “He had been happy and jovial. His demeanor changed, I think witnesses will describe, to a complete 180. At that point, once he learned of Mr. Rosales’ arrival at the cabin, he became depressed and moody.”

This culminated, she said evidence will show, in the shooting death of Rosales, 34, when he and De Simone were alone together at one of the cabins. Paige repeatedly referred to the fact that there were two shots, and that the gun in question is a single-action gun that needs to be cocked before each use.

The presentation of evidence will begin Monday, Judge Philip Pallenberg said in court. Many of the witnesses are coming from out of state and aren’t yet in town, the attorneys have said throughout the course of this past week.

Two of those witnesses, brothers Sam and Seth Bradshaw, are expected to testify that De Simone admitted the shooting to them in the aftermath, Paige said. One of them, Sam, recently provided new testimony that delayed the start of the trial by two days. On a phone call in court this past week, Sam said De Simone told him he was messing around with a gun and shot Rosales.

Friends and family of Rosales were present Friday, sitting in the row behind Paige and near the jury. Multiple family members were visibly emotional as Paige recounted the alleged facts in the case. Rosales’ widow Maria left the courtroom as Macaulay began her opening statement.

De Simone, according to reports at the time, is a former Arizona legislator who was living in Juneau in 2016. The Arizona Republic reported in 2008 that De Simone was arrested on charges of domestic violence and stepped down from his job with the legislature. The charges were later dropped, the New York Times reported.

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• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.

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