Sentence In Brutal Slaying Of Mission Viejo Transvestite: COURT

MISSION VIEJO, CA - A 25-year-old man was sentenced Friday to 16 years to life in prison for slashing the throat of a transvestite in the victim's Mission Viejo apartment.

Adam Anthony Ingala-Whiting was convicted in March of second-degree murder in the killing of 46-year-old Francesco "Joey" Bonomolo April 29, 2014.

Orange County Superior Court Judge Sheila Hanson rejected the defendant's motion for a new trial based on allegations of juror misconduct, which she said she did not find credible. She also rejected the defendant's plea for probation.

Ingala-Whiting's attorney, Peter Morreale, argued that the victim "did not exactly have clean hands" in the encounter with his client that led to the killing.

Bonomolo posed as a woman named Jeannie in his Craigslist ads, which drew a response from Ingala-Whiting days before the killing. Morreale argued that the victim manipulated others when setting up sexual encounters and that there was "provocation ... whether it was fear or anger" that led to the throat slashing.

The jury rejected the defendant's claim of self-defense in the trial.

Morreale also argued his client was barely 21 at the time of the killing and that he has led a virtually crime-free life before and after the crime.

"Mercy is for the merciful and the defendant was not merciful" when he killed the victim, Senior Deputy District Attorney Troy Pino countered.

Hanson said the defendant's "actions were intentional, malicious... callous," and his testimony in the trial was "rejected by the jury and quite honestly properly so. It was not credible."

Even if she found the defendant eligible for probation she would have rejected it, the judge said.

"The defendant stabbed the victim 14 separate times in a vicious manner and left him to die," Hanson said.

The judge noted that the defendant also took steps after the killing to cover his tracks.

Ingala-Whiting met the victim at his unit in the Vista Real Apartments at 27260 Los Altos after exchanging text messages for a few days.

The day before the victim was killed, Ingala-Whiting texted Jeannie that her proposition of a threesome with another woman "made him horny," then wrote "I'm free tonight," Pino said. Ingala-Whiting attached a selfie of himself shirtless, as well as a photo of an erect penis, according to Pino, who said those photos were later found on the defendant's phone.

The defendant began getting suspicious that Jeannie was not a woman and wanted to have a phone conversation to prove the person with whom he was texting was female, according to Pino. When Bonomolo did not call, Ingala- Whiting shut down the proposed liaison for that evening.

Bonomolo then asked Ingala-Whiting via text if he had any experience with "sissies," a slang term for transvestites, Pino said. Ingala-Whiting responded that he had "done everything under the sun" with females, but "with guys, nothing, but I'm open to suggestion."

Ingala-Whiting cut his hand in the attack and then got stitches later that day at an urgent care center, the prosecutor said.

When Ingala-Whiting was arrested on May 12, 2014, he lied to police saying that the last time he was in Orange County was to take his girlfriend to a Good Friday service in Ladera Ranch, Pino said. He also provided other false alibis, the prosecutor said.

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