The three defendants in the murder of Monte Sereno businessman Raveesh "Ravi" Kumra could face the death penalty if found guilty because the killing is said to have occurred while they were alleged accomplices in a robbery at his home on Withey Road on Nov. 30, the day of the murder.
Count one in the six-page criminal complaint against Lukis D. Anderson, 26, Javier R. Garcia, 21, and Deangelo J. Austin, 21, alleges the men killed Kumra, 66, the former owner of The Mountain Winery in Saratoga, while in the commission of felony robbery, becoming a "special circumstance" that qualifies them for capital punishment.
Count two says the men, arrested in December, acted "voluntarily in concert," and took personal property from the 7,000-square-foot mansion that also included cash, collectible coins and jewelry from Kumra and Hariner Kumra.
Count three accuses the men of assault with a deadly weapon, an instrument other than a firearm, a metal object against Hariner Kumra.
The men are also accused of making criminal threats resulting in death or great bodily injury through either a statement made verbally, in writing or by means of an electronic communication device, according to the complaint.
"... Even if there was no intent of actually carrying it out, which, on its face and under the circumstances in which it was made was so unequivocal, unconditional, immediate, and specific as to convey to the person threatened, Hariner Kumra, a gravity of purpose and an immediate prospect of execution of the threat and caused him or her reasonably to be in sustained fear for his or her own safety and for his or her immediate family's safety."
Counts 5 and 6 of the complaint allege the men also committed the crime of felony false imprisonment violating the personal liberty of Kumra and Hariner Kumra by violence, menace, fraud and deceit.
The complaint further alleges that prior to the killing and the other crimes that are said to have taken place that early Tuesday morning in the mansion, Anderson had already been convicted of felony residential burglary.
Similarly, Garcia had been convicted of possession for sale of a controlled substance in the Superior Court in Alameda County and served a prison term.
Like Anderson, Austin, too, had been convicted of felony residential burglary.
The complaint makes reference to official reports and law enforcement documents related to the high-interest case, but those records are now in a court file that's been sealed by the Santa Clara County District Attorney's Office.
The men appeared last Friday afternoon before Santa Clara County Superior Court Judge Jerome Nadler in Department 23 of the San Jose Hall of Justice and waived their time for their preliminary hearing. They were scheduled back to court at 2 p.m. Feb. 4 to possibly enter pleas.
A fourth suspect, 22-year-old Raven Chanel Dixon, has been charged with conspiracy to commit murder in connection to the Kumra killing, felony narcotics possession, misdemeanor prostitution and being drunk in public. The charges against her are found in a separate complaint Patch will publish Wednesday.
To read the entire criminal complaint for the men, please see attached PDF.
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