SAN DIEGO (CNS) — A former San Diego County sheriff's deputy who fatally shot a fleeing, unarmed man outside the San Diego Central Jail was convicted by a federal jury Tuesday.
Aaron Russell was found guilty of federal charges of deprivation of rights under color of law and using and discharging a firearm during and in relation to a crime of violence for the May 1, 2020, shooting death of 36-year- old Nicholas Bils.
The trial was Russell's second in federal court in connection with the shooting, after a prior jury deadlocked last year and was unable to reach verdicts.
Russell was also prosecuted in state court, where he faced a second- degree murder charge, but ultimately pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter and was sentenced in 2022 to one year in jail, plus probation.
The shooting also led to a wrongful death lawsuit filed by Bils' family, which settled in mid-2022, with San Diego County agreeing to pay the family $8.1 million.
Russell is slated to be sentenced in federal court in May.
Bils, who was in the process of being transported to the San Diego Central Jail, slipped out of his handcuffs and out of a California State Parks officer's car, then was shot multiple times in the back, arm and thigh while running away.
Three other law enforcement officers were at the scene, but Russell was the only one to draw his firearm, according to prosecutors.
At the time of the shooting, Russell was 23 years old and had been with the sheriff's department for 18 months.
Russell's retrial proceeded amid a request from his defense attorneys to postpone the trial because they argued that recent fatal high-profile law enforcement shootings would unfairly bias jurors against their client.
Defense attorneys Jeremy Warren and Miguel Penalosa Jr. argued in a motion to delay the trial that the January killings in Minneapolis of Renee Good and Alex Pretti by federal agents would make it "impossible for jurors to put aside any strong feelings they have about the other shootings of unarmed individuals."
U.S. District Judge Todd Robinson denied the defense's request for a three-month trial delay.
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