Updated at 5:30 p.m.
BURLINGTON — A federal jury has convicted the accused leader of a murder-for-hire plot of all charges brought against him in the 2018 killing in Vermont of a former business partner.
The 12-member jury returned its verdict Friday in federal court in Burlington in the case of Serhat Gumrukcu, finding him guilty of three felony counts: murder for hire, conspiracy to commit murder for hire and conspiracy to commit wire fraud.
Gumrukcu, 42, faces a mandatory sentence of life in prison when he is formally sentenced, which is expected to take place later this year.
Jurors began their deliberations a little after 5 p.m. Thursday and within 10 minutes asked Judge Christina Reiss if they could leave for the day and resume Friday morning. Reiss, after consulting with the attorneys in the case, granted that request.
The case against Gumrukcu stems from the fatal shooting of 49-year-old Gregory Davis of Danville. Prosecutors say Gumrukcu ordered and paid for Davis to be killed over a failed oil trading deal between the two men.
The jury returned its verdict Friday afternoon after a total of about six hours of deliberation, which included a break for lunch.
Gumrukcu, dressed in a blue suit and tie, showed no obvious emotion when the verdict was read. He was led away to jail shortly thereafter.
Acting U.S. Attorney Michael Drescher, whose office prosecuted the case, praised the work of all those who had helped with the case over the years, including the trial team of Assistant U.S. Attorneys Paul Van de Graaf and Zachary Stendig.
“This verdict is the product of years of investigative work by the men and women of the United States Attorney’s Office working closely with the Vermont State Police, the FBI and law enforcement around the country,” Drescher said.
Gumrukcu’s attorney could not be reached following the verdict.
The convictions for Gumrukcu represent a stunning fall for the Turkish national who became a permanent U.S. resident living in a luxury mansion in Los Angeles.
The onetime magician who specialized in mind reading eventually earned millions for his biomedical research into treatments for incurable illnesses, according to trial testimony. Gumrukcu also partied with Hollywood elite, from Oscar winners to the producer of a big-budget blockbuster film who testified in the Burlington courtroom on Gumrukcu’s behalf.
The verdict follows a five-week trial for Gumrukcu that featured him taking the stand in his own defense, spending three days in the witness chair.
During his testimony, Gumrukcu denied any role in Davis’ killing, though he admitted to providing false statements to authorities during the murder investigation as well as telling “so many lies” in his past business dealings that he couldn’t remember them all.
He told jurors he bought a medical degree from a Russian university, acknowledging that he knew it was “cheating.” He described himself as being “arrogant” at that time and wanting to follow a less traditional medical path that included the use of leeches and mistletoe to treat certain diseases.
Gumrukcu wanted Davis dead, according to prosecutors, because he feared the Vermont man was going to go to authorities and accuse him of fraud in a business deal between them. That would, prosecutors said during the trial, potentially jeopardize a much bigger business deal Gumrukcu had been working on with the biomedical company, Enochian BioSciences, in which Gumrukcu stood to gain millions.
Van de Graaf, a prosecutor, delivered a more than one-hour closing argument Thursday, opening his presentation by telling jurors the case was about three words: “money,” “manipulation” and “murder.”
Van de Graaf said the trial testimony — which included three other people charged in the murder plot as well as business records, emails and text messages — all pointed to Gumrukcu as the person who wanted Davis killed. Then, Van de Graaf said, Gumrukcu provided more than $200,000 to finance the murder.
“Gregg Davis was a problem for the defendant,” the prosecutor told jurors, and Gumrukcu’s solution was to “get rid” of Davis. “It was the defendant who paid for the murder,” he said.
Attorney Ethan Balogh, representing Gumrukcu, spoke for roughly two hours during his closing argument. Balogh focused a great deal of his time taking aim at the credibility of those charged in the murder-for-hire plot who testified against his client.
All three, Balogh told the jurors, reached plea deals that allowed them to escape the possibility of mandatory sentences of life behind bars for their roles in Davis’ killing, and in exchange they each had to cooperate with the prosecution in the case against Gumrukcu.
“These men were all going to die in the cage,” Balogh said, adding that by agreeing to work for the prosecution against his client they each face lesser prison terms when they are eventually sentenced.
The others charged in murder plot who testified against Gumrukcu included Berk Eratay, a fellow Turkish national and magician who later moved to Las Vegas. Eratay described himself on the witness stand as a close friend who worked as a personal assistant to Gumrukcu for several years in the United States.
Then one day, Eratay said while on the stand, Gumrukcu told him he wanted to “get rid of a problem,” referring to Davis, and Eratay got to work enlisting the help of a former neighbor, Aron Lee Ethridge, of Henderson, Nevada. Ethridge then recruited his friend and eventual hitman, Jerry Banks, of Fort Garland, Colorado.
Banks testified during the trial that he traveled to Vermont and on a snowy night on Jan. 6, 2018, knocked on the door of Davis’ home in Danville, and while pretending to be a U.S. marshal, told Davis he was under arrest for racketeering.
Banks told jurors he then handcuffed Davis, put him in a Ford Explorer adorned with law enforcement lights and drove about 10 miles to a roadway pull-off in Barnet. That’s where Banks told jurors he shot Davis in the back repeatedly before firing rounds into Davis’ head, killing him. Davis’ body was found the next day, partially covered in snow.
Davis was a father of six, and at the time of his death, his wife, Melissa Davis, was pregnant with their seventh child, according to trial testimony.
Balogh, Gumrukcu’s attorney, told jurors Thursday it was Eratay who was the mastermind behind the plot to kill Davis, and his client was never involved.
“He ran the op,” Balogh said of Eratay’s role in the murder-for-hire conspiracy, adding Gumrukcu never joined in or was aware it was taking place.
Eratay, Balogh suggested to jurors, had been well paid for his work with Gumrukcu and risked losing that job and the money that came with it if Davis made life difficult for Gumrukcu.
The money to finance the plot may have come from Gumrukcu, Balogh said, but only because it was redirected funds that Gumrukcu believed he was giving to Eratay to start up a cryptocurrency operation.
Balogh also questioned the honesty of Davis in his business dealings with Gumrukcu, telling jurors he doubted that Davis even had any access to oil that was supposedly at the center of any proposed business deal between the two men.
Van de Graaf pointed to Gumrukcu as the leader of the murder conspiracy, telling jurors that none of the other players in the plot had a motive to want Davis dead. In the case of Ethridge and Banks, they hadn’t even known him, Van de Graaf said.
The prosecutor then turned to the defense case presented during the trial, which featured several witnesses who testified about what a “peaceful” and “nonviolent” person Gumrukcu was in their eyes.
It’s easy to appear to be peaceful and nonviolent, Van de Graaf told the jurors, when a person has others do their “dirty work” for them.
Correction: A previous version of this story misstated Gregory Davis’ age at the time of his death. He was 49 years old.
