Commonwealth v. Anthony Villalobos.

NOTICE: Summary decisions issued by the Appeals Court pursuant to M.A.C. Rule
23.0, as appearing in 97 Mass. App. Ct. 1017 (2020) (formerly known as rule 1:28,
as amended by 73 Mass. App. Ct. 1001 [2009]), are primarily directed to the parties
and, therefore, may not fully address the facts of the case or the panel's
decisional rationale. Moreover, such decisions are not circulated to the entire
court and, therefore, represent only the views of the panel that decided the case.
A summary decision pursuant to rule 23.0 or rule 1:28 issued after February 25,
2008, may be cited for its persuasive value but, because of the limitations noted
above, not as binding precedent. See Chace v. Curran, 71 Mass. App. Ct. 258, 260
n.4 (2008).

COMMONWEALTH OF MASSACHUSETTS

APPEALS COURT

25-P-280

COMMONWEALTH

vs.

ANTHONY VILLALOBOS.

MEMORANDUM AND ORDER PURSUANT TO RULE 23.0

The defendant, Anthony Villalobos, appeals from his

conviction by a Superior Court jury of the involuntary

manslaughter of Jose Alicea. The defendant argues that the

evidence was insufficient to prove that he participated in the

beating of the victim, or that he acted with the requisite

intent. We affirm.

Background. We set forth the facts in the light most

favorable to the Commonwealth based on the evidence at trial,

including the security video footage. See Commonwealth v.

Carleton, 497 Mass. 11, 13 (2026), citing Commonwealth v.

Latimore, 378 Mass. 671, 676-677 (1979).
On August 20, 2009, the defendant attended a funeral in

Lynn. Many of the attendees, including the defendant, wore

black and red clothing as a tribute to the deceased. That

evening, a group of at least twenty of the mourners, including

the defendant, traveled in limousines to a nightclub on Stanhope

Street in the Back Bay section of Boston. Most of the group

were men wearing similar black and red clothing, except that the

defendant's black collared shirt had a photograph of the

deceased on the back that from a distance looked like a white

square. The defendant was the only one wearing that shirt.

At about 2 A.M., the nightclub closed and hundreds of

patrons crowded the street outside. The nightclub's doorman

asked people in the crowd to move along and not block the

street. Among the crowd were the victim and his friends Omar

Castillo and Gregory Pimental. Also in the crowd were the men

wearing black and red clothing. At 2:01 A.M., security video

footage depicted the defendant, wearing the black shirt with the

white square on the back, standing on Stanhope Street near a

Cadillac Escalade limousine.

At 2:04 A.M., the defendant was milling with others in his

group on Cahners Place, a short street that runs from Stanhope

Street to Columbus Avenue. The victim began "running his mouth"

to the men in black and red. Using obscenities and racial

epithets, the victim yelled, "Come on, . . . , I'll take you[]

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all on." Hearing the argument, the doorman walked up Cahners

Place and stood between the two groups, trying verbally to

deescalate the situation.

Someone from the defendant's group threw a beer bottle at

the victim's group. At 2:06 A.M., the defendant went up Cahners

Place with the other men in black and red. The men in black and

red went around the doorman and charged at the victim, Castillo,

and Pimental.

About thirty seconds later, around the corner on Columbus

Avenue, the men in black and red caught the victim and began

attacking him. The doorman was trying to break up the fight by

pushing the combatants away from each other. On the other side

of the group, the nightclub's head of security was also trying

to break up the fight. The men in black and red were kicking

the victim vigorously and punching him as he lay on the ground.

The victim suffered severe head trauma and lost consciousness.

The men in black and red also attacked Pimental and Castillo.1

At 2:07 A.M., the defendant walked about halfway back down

Cahners Place, where he stopped and bent over and grabbed his

1 The judge entered a required finding of not guilty on an
indictment alleging assault and battery on Pimental, who did not
testify. The jury acquitted the defendant of assault and
battery by means of a dangerous weapon and assault and battery
on Castillo.

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knees, as if catching his breath. He then got into the Cadillac

limousine.

When the police arrived, the victim was lying in the right

travel lane of Columbus Avenue, bleeding and unresponsive, with

multiple abrasions and lacerations to his face and head. In the

Cadillac limousine were at least fourteen people. The police

conducted a showup procedure in which people were taken out of

that limousine one at a time and viewed by the doorman. The

doorman identified twelve men as having been "involved in the

fight" on Columbus Avenue. One of the men the doorman

identified was the defendant.2 On the back of the defendant's

pants was a bloodstain, but the DNA it contained was not

consistent with that of the victim, Castillo, or Pimental.

The victim never regained consciousness and was pronounced

dead on August 23, 2009. He died of multiple blunt force

injuries to his head, causing trauma to his brain.

The defendant was charged with offenses including the

second-degree murder of the victim. At a 2011 trial, he was

convicted of the lesser included offense of involuntary

manslaughter. On appeal, we held that the evidence at that

2 Of fourteen men in the limousine, the doorman identified
twelve as having been involved in the fight. As to the other
two men, he either did not recognize them or did not remember
them.

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trial was sufficient to prove the defendant's participation

either as principal or as a joint venturer in the beating death

of the victim. Commonwealth v. Villalobos, 89 Mass. App. Ct.

432, 435 (2016). On further appellate review, the Supreme

Judicial Court agreed that the evidence was sufficient, but

reversed the conviction on another ground. Commonwealth v.

Villalobos, 478 Mass. 1007, 1009 (2017). A second trial in 2019

ended in a mistrial.

In 2022, at the jury trial underlying this appeal, the

defendant again was convicted of the involuntary manslaughter of

the victim. The defendant filed a postconviction motion for a

required finding, Mass. R. Crim. P. 25 (b) (2), as amended, 420

Mass. 1502 (1995), which the judge denied. The defendant

appeals from his conviction.

Discussion. The defendant argues that the evidence was

insufficient to convict him of involuntary manslaughter on an

aiding and abetting theory because it did not identify him as

one of the participants in the beating of the victim. We are

not persuaded.

As the judge instructed, involuntary manslaughter is

defined as either an unlawful killing unintentionally caused by

a battery, or wanton or reckless conduct that causes death. See

Commonwealth v. Moscaritolo, 497 Mass. 220, 230 (2026). "Such

wanton or reckless conduct is intentional conduct that create[s]

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a high degree of likelihood that substantial harm will result to

another person" (quotation and citation omitted). Id. See

Commonwealth v. Welansky, 316 Mass. 383, 387, 397 (1944). To

convict the defendant on an aiding and abetting theory, the

Commonwealth was required to prove that he intentionally

participated in beating the victim or aided and assisted another

person in doing so with the intent of making the crime succeed.

See Commonwealth v. Zanetti, 454 Mass. 449, 467 (2009). See

also Marshall v. Commonwealth, 463 Mass. 529, 535 (2012).

"[T]he Commonwealth is not required to prove exactly how a joint

venturer participated in the [homicide]." Commonwealth v.

Deane, 458 Mass. 43, 50 (2010). "Direct evidence of who

[inflicted blows on] the victim is not required where . . .

there is strong circumstantial evidence that one of the

[assailants] [inflicted blows on] the victim[]" (quotation and

citation omitted). Commonwealth v. Chipman, 418 Mass. 262, 268

(1994). At the same time, we "bear in mind a fundamental

limitation on joint venture liability: it does not sweep so

broadly as to establish a form of guilt by association."

Commonwealth v. Bonner, 489 Mass. 268, 276 (2022).

The doorman identified the defendant as "one of the people

on Columbus Ave. involved in the fight." That identification

was corroborated by the video footage, which we have carefully

reviewed, that depicted the defendant moving with the group of

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men in black and red toward the location of the beating on

Columbus Avenue shortly before it, and walking away from that

area shortly afterwards, seemingly out of breath. The

identification was also corroborated by the testimony of the

nightclub's head of security that the "whole group" of men in

black and red was participating in beating the victim,

"everybody was getting a turn kicking the guy or beating him

up," and "[t]hey were taking turns like kicking him . . . they

would squeeze in between some of their friends, they would kick

him."

In holding that the evidence at the 2011 trial sufficed to

prove that the defendant participated as a joint venturer in the

beating death of the victim, we noted that at that trial the

doorman "had identified the defendant at the scene as having

been involved in the brawl and as being among the 'more

aggressive' of the participants." Villalobos, 89 Mass. App. Ct.

at 435 n.5. At the 2022 trial, there was no evidence that the

doorman had described the defendant as one of the more

aggressive participants, but the doorman did testify that he had

identified the defendant as having been "involved in the fight."

"[V]iewing the evidence in the light most favorable to the

Commonwealth, the jury could have found that the defendant 'was

at least a participant [in the brawl], even if he was not the

sole perpetrator, and that he possessed the state of mind

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required for guilt'" (citation omitted). Villalobos, supra at

435.

Judgment affirmed.

By the Court (Grant, Walsh &
Brennan, JJ.3),

Clerk

Entered: June 5, 2026.

3 The panelists are listed in order of seniority.

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