Man Gets 11 Years for Killing Ex-Wife in Case With New Charges Against Detective Suspect

OAKLAND — A Sacramento man has been sentenced to 11 years in state prison for killing the father of his wife’s children in a 2021 shooting.

The plea deal comes a year after defense attorneys for 34-year-old Donte Neal filed a motion accusing one of the detectives of paying a man to make an “anonymous” call that led to a break in the case. Oakland police detective Fong Chan has already been charged with bribing a witness to influence her testimony in another case.

As part of a plea deal, Neal pleaded guilty to first degree murder the death of 31-year-old Byron Robinson. Prosecutors dropped murder and assault charges against Neal, who was transferred to a state prison in late September, records show.

Robinson was shot and killed around 5:30 p.m. on Nov. 6, 2021, in the 7400 block of Weld Street in East Oakland. Police say Neal pulled up to Robinson’s car, fired five shots and drove off, spending the night at the rodeo before returning to Sacramento.

The case remained unsolved for months. But court documents say it wasn’t until 48 hours after the killing that Oakland police received an anonymous call reporting Neal’s involvement and provided Neal’s phone number. Police later used the number to establish Neal’s presence at the crime scene and questioned him about the number when he was arrested and charged in February 2022.

Brian Cecilio Amaya, an attorney representing Neal, filed a motion last year saying the defense team did not believe the anonymous call was truly spontaneous.

“Similar to the charges for which Officer Tran is currently awaiting trial, the defendant’s attorney alleges that Officer Tran paid an ‘anonymous’ caller to call him, provide him with this false tip, and provide Officer Tran with the alleged defendant’s phone number,” Amaya wrote in a lawsuit. “This false ‘anonymous call’ was used as the basis for probable cause in the arrest warrant issued for the defendant’s arrest.”

When police arrested Neal, he allegedly claimed to have been in Sacramento the day Robinson was killed and denied ever using his wife’s Mercedes, which police said was used in the shooting. Prosecutors say his cell phone location data tell a different story: Neal killed Robinson, stopped briefly at the Rodeo and continued the rest of the way back to his home in Sacramento.

At the time of the killing, Neal was on parole for assault with a semiautomatic firearm in Alameda County in 2019, court records show. His parole expired on January 4, a month before his arrest in this case.

Originally published: October 30, 2024 at 11:56 a.m. PDT