The attorney for a North Carolina girl accused of helping two teens who carried out a deadly attack on a San Diego mosque says prosecutors haven’t provided enough information to allow him to defend his client.
Sarah Santiago, 17, is charged as an adult with three counts of murder by aiding and abetting and one count of conspiracy. Prosecutors say she helped the two California teens, who shot and killed three people at the Islamic Center of San Diego on May 18 before killing themselves.
Prosecutors in North Carolina allege Santiago agreed in advance to record and distribute a livestream of the attack made by the shooters and to disseminate their white-supremacist writings. She is also accused of buying a patch bearing a white-supremacist symbol and sending it to one of the gunmen to wear during the attack.
But prosecutors have yet to provide information about how or on what dates Santiago allegedly communicated with the shooters, or give details about the alleged agreement to record and disseminate the livestream, her attorney, Alan Doorasamy, said during a court hearing Monday.
Doorasamy filed a formal request for the information — known as a “bill of particulars” — on Friday, and the judge scheduled a hearing Wednesday on the motion. The motion does not seek to force the prosecutor's office to turn over actual evidence, but rather to provide more information clarifying the allegations against Santiago.
Prosecutors have not yet responded to Doorasamy's request. The Forsyth County District Attorney's Office did not immediately return a call seeking comment Monday.
“She needs to know why she was arrested," Doorasamy told The Associated Press in comments outside the courthouse Monday. “She's a child. Of course she's very scared and she's worried, but she's done nothing wrong."
Santiago was arrested late last month and is being held without bail. Under North Carolina law, the aiding-and-abetting charges — in the event of a conviction — carry the same penalties as if the defendant had committed the attack.
Caleb Vazquez, 18, and another 17-year-old, stormed the Islamic Center on May 18 before being driven back outside by a security guard who exchanged gunfire with them as he initiated a lockdown, helping to protect 140 children just steps away.
The pair killed the guard, Amin Abdullah, and two other men before taking their own lives in a nearby vehicle. They left behind rambling writings full of vitriol against a wide range of people, and cited the shooter who killed 51 people at two mosques in Christchurch, New Zealand, in 2019, as one of the models for their violence.
Vazquez and the other shooter also planned subsequent attacks on two other targets: a Jewish temple and Black students at a high school, authorities said. Forsyth County District Attorney Jim O’Neill credited the guard and other victims at the mosque with saving countless lives.
In a written statement, the Vazquez family said Caleb Vazquez was on the autism spectrum and had grown to resent parts of his identity. The family said it believed those factors, combined with exposure to hateful rhetoric online, contributed to his radicalization.
They have since filed a lawsuit against a San Diego mental health facility for negligence and wrongful death.
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Associated Press reporter Gene Johnson in Seattle contributed to this report.
