Antonio Christian killed Saundra Simonee, daughter says in court

In her latest version of her mother’s death, an East Norwich woman told a jury in Riverhead Thursday that her boyfriend punched her mother in the face, tortured her until she gave up her bank card PIN and finally beat her skull in with a hammer.

But Shatura Simonée, 29, freely and flatly acknowledged that she’s told numerous versions of what happened shortly after midnight on Sept. 26, 2013. She also agreed that she passed up several opportunities to save her mother and did nothing to turn in her boyfriend, Antonio Christian, 28, of Roosevelt.

Christian is on trial before state Supreme Court Justice Mark Cohen, charged with first-degree murder in the death of Saundra Simonée, 59.

Shatura Simonée testified against him as part of a cooperation agreement. She pleaded guilty to criminal facilitation in return for a sentence of 4 to 12 years in prison, but after she changed her story again shortly before trial, she pleaded guilty to hindering prosecution and now faces 6 to 18 years in prison.

During questioning by Assistant District Attorney Laura Newcombe, Simonée said she pressured Christian to visit her that night, even though an order of protection barred him from the house she shared with her mother. When her mother caught Christian there, she insisted that he leave, but Christian wanted to talk to her first, Simonée said.

But her mother wouldn’t hear it, she said.

“He said he was sorry for what he was about to do,” Simonée testified. “He turned the light off and punched her in the face.”

The blow broke her mother’s jaw, the witness said. She went downstairs to check on her two children and when she came back up, she said Christian was standing over her mother, holding her ATM card in one hand. With the other, she said he was jabbing her in the side and demanding the PIN. After her mother relented, Simonée said she took her mother’s card and withdrew cash at a nearby bank. When she got back, she said her mother was begging to be allowed to go to a hospital, promising she wouldn’t say what happened.

Simonée said she went downstairs to lie down, but soon she “heard a thud” and came back upstairs to see what it was.

“He’s hitting her, mid-strike, with a hammer in the back of the head,” she said. He hit her three or four more times, she said, and her mother moaned after each blow except the last.

Afterward, the couple went to the kitchen while Christian smoked a cigarette in silence, she said. Then they went downstairs, watched television and fell asleep. The next day, while her mother lay dead in the living room, she said they took her kids to school and to day care and then dropped Christian in Hempstead. While he was there he used Saundra Simonée’s ATM card to get cash and buy a PlayStation 3, according to earlier testimony.

In text messages that day, Simonée told Christian, “I truly love you, babe.” That night, he wrapped up the body and dumped it in Bay Shore while Shatura Simonée said she cleaned up the blood. Until then, she said her kids were told to keep their eyes closed whenever they walked through the living room.

She avoided looking at Christian while testifying and showed a trace of emotion only when Newcombe had her read sexually explicit love letters from him to her.

During cross-examination by defense attorney Steven Wilutis of Miller Place, Simonée conceded she did nothing to help her mother, never pleaded with Christian to stop and passed up several chances to alert the police or others about what was going on. Wilutis accused her of the murder.

“Isn’t it a fact that you had an argument with your mother and you lost it, and you hit her and killed her?” he asked.

“No,” she said.

He also asked about her cooperation agreement with prosecutors.

“Four to 12 is a lot better than life without parole, isn’t it?” Wilutis asked, and she agreed.

“You’d say anything to get out of going to prison for the rest of your life, right?” he asked.

“Yes,” she said.

Wilutis focused on how she went about her business the day of the killing, while her mother lay dead in the living room.

“You acted like nothing happened, didn’t you?” Wilutis asked, and she agreed again.