By the time Mark De Simone is sentenced, it will have been more than a year since he was convicted of first-degree murder.
The sentencing for De Simone, found guilty of first-degree murder for the shooting death of Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales, was scheduled to happen Wednesday but has now been pushed back to mid-June.
Juneau Superior Court Judge Philip M. Pallenberg scheduled the sentencing — which has now been pushed back three times — for 9 a.m. on Monday, June 17. Sentencing is expected to take all day, lawyers said in court Wednesday.
Assistant District Attorney Amy Paige said in court Wednesday that this delay will allow for Rosales’ widow Maria Gonzalez to be at the sentencing in person. Gonzalez is currently attending school out of state, Paige said, and will be able to come up once the current semester is finished.
Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales is pictured on a hunting trip in Excursion Inlet May 15, 2016. Later that day, Rosales was shot and killed. Mark De Simone, who was with Rosales on the trip, is accused of murder. (Rosales Family | Courtesy Photo)
A jury found De Simone, currently 56, guilty of first-degree murder on May 10, 2018, after a two-and-a-half week trial. Sentencing was originally set for Sept. 12, then Dec. 5 and then Feb. 20, but was pushed back each time.
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Rosales’ death happened during a hunting trip to Excursion Inlet on Sunday, May 15, 2016, as described by witnesses at the trial. The hunting party that included De Simone and Rosales was split between two cabins that week, several witnesses testified, and De Simone and Rosales were alone on the deck of one of them on that Sunday evening.
Rosales, a 34-year-old jeweler and Juneau resident, was sitting on a bench next to a table on the deck and had just taken off his boots, investigators testified. That’s when a Ruger .41 Magnum Blackhawk revolver fired twice, with both bullets hitting Rosales in the head just behind his right ear, forensic pathologists testified.
Mark De Simone enters Juneau Superior Court on Wednesday, May 9, 2018. De Simone was found guilty of killing Duilio Antonio “Tony” Rosales during a hunting trip in Excursion Inlet in 2016. (Michael Penn | Juneau Empire File)
De Simone didn’t testify during his trial, but Assistant Public Defender Deborah Macaulay didn’t dispute in court that De Simone pulled the trigger. The main defense in the case was that De Simone could have fired twice accidentally, and two gun experts squared off in the final days of the trial and debated whether that was possible. Jurors were not convinced that De Simone accidentally fired twice and found him guilty.
• Contact reporter Alex McCarthy at 523-2271 or amccarthy@juneauempire.com. Follow him on Twitter at @akmccarthy.
