Hollywood producer David Pearce was found guilty on all charges Tuesday in the drug overdose deaths of model Christy Giles and her pal — whose lifeless bodies were callously dumped outside Los Angeles hospitals in 2021.
Pearce, 42, was charged with murder for luring Giles, 24, and her friend Hilda Marcela Cabrales Arzola, 26, to his apartment in November 2021, plying them with fentanyl-laced cocaine and drugging their drinks. Prosecutors alleged that he refused to call for help after finding them unconscious.
Pearce was also charged with counts of rape against seven victims who came forward after his arrest.
LA prosecutor Catherine Ann Mariano told the 12-member jury that Pearce is a calculating serial rapist who lured women to his home by posing as a Hollywood bigshot and promising to help them break into the entertainment business.
Pearce met Giles and Arzola in 2021 at a warehouse rave party in LA.
According to court testimony, he and a wingman, Michael Ansbach, brought the girls back to Pearce’s apartment.
Ansbach testified that Pearce pushed all three guests to snort his cocaine. He allegedly served wine to the women and handed Ansbach a foul-tasting cocktail that made him feel dizzy, pass out and become violently ill when he woke up.
The women also passed out but never woke up, Ansbach testified. He also told jurors that when he begged Pearce to call 911, his pal allegedly refused, saying, “Dead girls don’t talk.”
After Ansbach left, Pearce and his roommate Brandt Osborn, who is being charged as an accessory, allegedly shoved the women’s lifeless bodies into his car, drove them to two different hospitals and dumped them on the curbs before driving away.
A toxicology test found fentanyl and the date rape drug GHB in Giles’ body. Prosecutors told the jurors that the fentanyl was fatal, and that Pearce knew his cocaine had been laced with it.
But Pearce claimed he had no idea the two women were in danger until it was too late.
Taking the stand against the advice of his attorneys, Pearce testified that he put the women in a guest bedroom before going to sleep in his own room. When the women had been unconscious for 12 hours, Pearce claimed that he administered CPR and drove them to hospitals, because he thought it would be faster than calling an ambulance.
But Mariano urged the jurors not to fall for Pearce’s story.
“The defendant is a guy that gets off in power and control,” she told the jury. “Exerting power and control over vulnerable women.”
Pearce faces 128 years to life in prison without the possibility of parole.
Since his arrest, other women have come forward and claimed Pearce drugged and raped them.
In addition to two murder counts, Pearce was charged with sexual assaulting seven victims over a 13-year period.
Pearce met his victims — who were not identified in court — at parties or on dating apps, served them drugged drinks and then forced himself on them, Mariano said.
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