A Los Angeles County Superior Court judge set a readiness hearing for next month in the trial of a Missions Hills man charged with murder and assault with a deadly weapon in a fatal shooting that involved a College of the Canyons student.
COC student Gavin Unzueta and two friends were egging cars in Mission Hills when Grigor Hovspeyan pursued the car, pulled up alongside the students and started firing a gun into their car, fatally striking Unzueta, according to testimony from Hovsepyan’s preliminary hearing.
Hovsepyan has pleaded not guilty to the charges.
In August, Judge Hilleri Merritt set a readiness hearing for last week, which was tentatively scheduled to be the last week before the start of trial, according to an Aug. 19 minute order.
Last week, Merritt rescheduled the readiness hearing for Oct. 12, in Department J of the San Fernando Courthouse, after Hovsepyan’s attorney, George Mgdesyan, indicated he would be in trial for an unrelated matter.
The readiness hearing is expected to discuss any motions regarding evidence and testimony that may be admitted or disallowed at trial and any facts stipulated by both sides.
The trial is expected to take seven to eight days, according to the minute order.
Hovsepyan is facing a potential penalty of life without parole, if he’s convicted of the brutal allegations made against him by a surviving witness.
Nick Sanchez, a friend of Unzueta’s in the car with him that night, said it was kids “being kids” after a late-night show of “Spider-man” that by chance brought them to the neighborhood of Hovsepyan, a man none of them knew.
The three friends drove to a grocery store, bought eggs and then threw them at cars from a well-known spot that overlooks the SFV known as “Reseda Point.”
After targeting three cars with eggs, Sanchez, Unzueta and Paul Lopez, who was driving, came across Hovsepyan’s white sedan, which was parked on the street, and two of them made the fateful decision to toss eggs at it, according to Sanchez’s testimony.
The L.A. County District Attorney’s Office charged Hovsepyan, one of several drivers targeted by the egg-throwing, with two counts of attempted murder and one count of murder in Unzueta’s death, alleging Hovsepyan caught up to them and fired several shots in retaliation, including one to the chest that killed Unzueta.
Los Angeles Police Department detectives recovered four 9 mm shell casings from the scene, according to Hovsepyan’s preliminary hearing.
However, Hovsepyan reportedly told an undercover officer he was in custody with that he had kept the handle, but got rid of the barrel and the slide, whichy would make the weapon harder to identify forensically.
The testimony also indicated Hovsepyan’s girlfriend, who’s being called by the prosecution as a witness, was in the car with Hovsepyan at the time of the shooting.
Through his previous counsel, Hovsepyan claimed he was not mentally competent to stand trial.
A judge cleared him for trial in December. In May, he earned a reprimand from the judge for refusing to leave his jail cell for two days in a row.
Hovsepyan remains in custody without bail while he awaits trial.
