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Philly man guilty, another acquitted, in Montco home-invasion slaying

A Montgomery County jury on Tuesday convicted a Philadelphia man in the murder of his ex-girlfriend's father, but acquitted a friend who also was on trial for the September home-invasion.

A Montgomery County jury on Tuesday convicted a Philadelphia man in the murder of his ex-girlfriend's father, but acquitted a friend who also was on trial for the September home-invasion.

Naadir Abdul-Ali, 21, will serve a mandatory life sentence for his conviction of second-degree murder in the killing of Kevin Brown, of Lower Moreland Township.

Co-defendant Desmond Smith, 21, also of Philadelphia, walked smiling from the courtroom after he was acquitted of all charges. During the 11-day trial Smith's attorney presented an alibi defense and video footage from SEPTA's Market-Frankford line, suggesting that Smith was riding the train at the time of the murder.

And the jury believed it.

"What's up, I'm out of here, you hear me?" Smith told reporters as he was escorted into the elevator following the jury's verdict. Brown's family stood nearby, some of them crying loudly.

The jury found Abdul-Ali guilty of breaking into his ex-girlfriend's family's home to kill her father, days after she left the abusive relationship. Two other men, Mujahid Mathews and Adburrahman Amin, pleaded guilty to third-degree murder in plea deals offered by prosecutors that spares them life sentences.

Throughout the trial in Norristown, prosecutors portrayed Abdul-Ali, a heavyweight boxer, as abusive and controlling in his relationship with Brown's daughter.

"She met the wrong guy - the guy in the light blue suit," Deputy District Attorney Thomas McGoldrick told jurors during closing arguments Monday, pointing to Abdul-Ali.

Prosecutors said that Abdul-Ali had raped and beaten his girlfriend and that she had called her parents to take her home days before her father's murder.

"If we can't be together, someone's got to go," Abdul-Ali allegedly told her by phone, hours before breaking into her home and killing Brown.

The woman, her baby son, her sister, and her parents were home the night of the home invasionon Philmont Avenue.

Brown heard the intruders and "takes them on" to protect his family, McGoldrick said. After telling his wife to climb out the bedroom window, he was shot and tried to follow her, but fell to the ground and died.

The jury did acquit Abdul-Ali of three of the many charges against him that related to possessing a firearm or instrument of crime. He sat nearly expressionless as the jury read its verdict, shaking his head slightly.

"If they acquitted him of the gun charges, then they didn't think he shot the guy," his attorney, Benjamin Cooper, said after the verdict, calling the outcome "lousy." He said he will consider an appeal.

S. Philip Steinberg, Smith's attorney, called the jury "a beacon of light."

He said the video he presented at trial showed his client was innocent, because he was identifiable and wearing distinctive clothing as he rode SEPTA's Market-Frankford line at the time of the murder.

Prosecutors argued that the video was too unclear to see Smith's face. Smith told police in his initial statement that he had stayed home that night. And prosecutors said Smith's girlfriend, who testified as an alibi witness and said she rode the train with him that night, was not credible because she lied on his behalf to an investigating grand jury.

"Don't believe a word of that alibi, folks, it's fake," McGoldrick warned the jury during closing arguments Monday.

But Smith, who has been in jail since his arrest last year, will now be released.

"He was innocent," Steinberg said. "I'm pretty moved by this verdict."