Actor Linked To Model's Deaths Gets Probation, Community Service

LOS ANGELES, CA — An actor charged in connection with the fentanyl overdose deaths of two women who were left at Los Angeles-area hospitals pleaded no contest Monday to being an accessory after the fact and was immediately sentenced to community service and probation.

Brandt Osborn, 46, entered a plea to two counts of accessory after the fact and was sentenced to two years of formal probation and 480 hours of community service, according to the Los Angeles County District Attorney's Office.

In February, co-defendant David Pearce, a Hollywood producer who was convicted of first-degree murder for the deaths of the women — a model and her friend — along with charges that he sexually assaulted seven other women, was sentenced to 146 years to life in state prison.

• Read more: After 14 Years Of 'Sexual Depravity,' Producer Turned Convicted Murderer Sentenced To 146 Years In Prison

Pearce, 43, was found guilty of the two murder charges stemming from the deaths of 24-year-old model and aspiring actress Christy Giles and her 26- year-old friend Hilda Marcela Cabrales-Arzola, who were taken to separate Southland hospitals about two hours apart on Nov. 13, 2021.

Giles was already dead when she was taken to Southern California Hospital in Culver City, while Cabrales-Arzola, an architect, was alive outside Kaiser Permanente West Los Angeles Hospital but in critical condition. Her family took her off life support later that month, a day before her 27th birthday.

A seven-man, five-woman jury also found Pearce guilty of three counts of forcible rape, two counts of sexual penetration by use of force and one count each of rape of an unconscious person and sodomy by use of force — with all the sexual-assault charges involving crimes against seven women between 2007 and 2020.

The jury in downtown Los Angeles was unable to reach verdicts on charges against co-defendant Osborn, who was facing two counts of being an accessory after the fact. Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Eleanor J. Hunter declared a mistrial on those charges after jurors said they were hopelessly deadlocked.

Deputy District Attorney Catherine Mariano told jurors at the start of the trial that Pearce was a "sexual predator," and said in her closing argument that there was no reason for Pearce's DNA to be found on the two women, including under Cabrales-Arzola's fingernails, if they weren't drugged and then sexually assaulted.

Pearce's trial attorney, Jeff Voll, told reporters after the verdict that it was "truthfully not surprising given the overwhelming amount of incriminating evidence," but added that he thought the jury would deadlock on the murder counts against his client.

"Because to believe David Pearce intended to kill Hilda and Christy, you would have to believe he intended to kill (key prosecution witness) Michael Ansbach and there was just no reason, no evidence ... because they all got sick off of fentanyl — all of them, and unfortunately two passed," Voll said.

In her closing argument, the prosecutor told jurors that Pearce "knew the dangers of fentanyl," but said he still gave fentanyl and GHB (known as a "date rape" drug) to Giles and Cabrales-Arzola "because he wanted to sexually assault them."

Osborn accompanied Pearce in a Toyota Prius with no license plates attached to the hospitals where Giles and Cabrales-Arzola were left, the prosecutor said.

The deaths of the two women were classified as homicides by the Los Angeles County Department of Medical Examiner, with toxicology reports finding multiple drugs present in both victims' systems, according to the department.

The deputy district attorney told jurors that Pearce and Osborn waited hours to leave the residence they shared on Olympic Boulevard in the Pico- Robertson district to take Giles to the hospital when she was already dead and then returned to their apartment and took Cabrales-Arzola to a different hospital about two hours later.

Pearce had met the two women at an after-hours rave in downtown Los Angeles, according to Mariano.

During the trial, jurors heard from both defendants.

Jurors also heard from five other women who alleged that they were sexually assaulted by Pearce in addition to the seven victims named in the sexual assault charges.

City News Service