Chaz Joseph Burgest, 33, was recently sentenced to 20 years in prison for voluntary manslaughter plus five years, consecutive, for possessing a firearm during commission of a felony in the April 23, 2022, shooting death of De’onta Trowel Mosteller 26, at a Statesboro apartment complex.

The Statesboro Herald reported the jury’s verdict in Burgest’s Feb. 8-9 trial. But after the sentencing hearing originally slated for Feb. 28 was postponed, the newspaper did not have a reporter present at the sentencing March 21. 

On that date, Chief Judge F. Gates Peed of the Ogeechee Judicial Circuit Superior Courts heard from both sides before pronouncing the sentence. As sought by the prosecution, it was the maximum on both charges.

Georgia law provides for a sentence of from one year to 20 years for voluntary manslaughter. For a first conviction of possession of a firearm or knife in commission of certain felonies, the law does not suggest a range but mandates a five-year sentence consecutive to the sentence for any other crime.

The “final disposition” form Peed signed sums up the total sentence as 25 years and gives Burgest credit for time served in custody since April 26, 2022.

Mother’s request

Burgest’s mother, Alda May Cooper, had written what she called “a letter from parent to parent” to Peed and read it in court. She referred to the case as “devastating … for all parties involved” and said that she had raised Chaz and his siblings in a Christian environment. As a youth director at her church for more than 40 years, she had advocated for parents and children in many circumstances, she wrote.

Cooper said that her son had no previous felony record.

“I am concerned about Chaz’s mental state at the present time. Chaz has never been locked up before,” she wrote.  “This is devastating for him. On that faithful night there is no doubt that Chaz was in the wrong place, at the wrong time, with the wrong type of people. Literally, Chaz was fighting for his life.”

She noted that he has six children, including a set of twins, and said he is a very good father. Burgest is a certified long-distance truck driver and was in the process of returning to school to add crane operation and chemical transportation to his certifications, his mother stated.

“Chaz is suffering too, because he never wanted to take anyone’s life,” Cooper wrote. “He will have to live with that for the remainder of his life.”

She then asked the judge for the minimum sentence for Burgest, phrasing it as “no less than one year” and said that once freed he would never return to Statesboro again.

Jury’s verdict

Deliberating for nearly four and half hours on Feb. 9 at the conclusion of the trial, 12 jurors had unanimously found Burgest not guilty of the malice murder and felony murder charges in the original indictment. But the jurors all found him guilty of voluntary manslaughter, where it was listed in the judge’s instructions to the jury as a lesser included alternative to the felony murder charge.

The jury also found Burgest not guilty of aggravated assault, which in the indictment had been the supporting charge for the felony murder allegation, but guilty of possessing a firearm while committing voluntary manslaughter.

The fatal shooting occurred about 6:45 p.m. Saturday, April 23 at Pinewood Manor apartment complex on Packinghouse Road. A cookout had been taking place that afternoon behind Building L, where De’onta Mosteller and his girlfriend resided.

During the trial, the jury repeatedly viewed video, from a security camera behind the building, that showed Mosteller emerge from a breezeway, take a few steps, turn his upper body back toward the breezeway and quickly fall.

Witnesses placed Burgest inside the breezeway, and his defense attorney at trial, David N.  Ghazi, asserted in his closing argument that Burgest had fired four shots in self-defense after Mosteller approached him in the breezeway with a weapon. Testifying in his own defense, Burgest said Mosteller had flashed a gun at him, prompting Burgest to throw his hands up.

Police found a Jimenez .380 semiautomatic pistol beside Mosteller’s body but no evidence that it had been fired. That pistol and Burgest’s .38-caliber Taurus revolver, which he had legally owned, went to the jury room as two of the 41 evidentiary exhibits.

But when the security camera footage was replayed, no gun was visible in Mosteller’s hand as he turned and then fell. Investigators suggested that the pistol may have fallen out of the pocket of his shorts. Mosteller was struck by one bullet in the face and another in the back of his right arm, a forensic pathologist testified.

Mosteller had four sons at the time of his death, and his daughter was born a couple of weeks after his funeral, family members said.

“De’onta Trowel Mosteller was a son, he was a father, he loved his family, and he was loved by his family…,” Assistant District Attorney Russell Jones said in the prosecution’s closing during the trial. “De’onta Trowel Mosteller did not deserve what happened to him. That’s the truth.”

Notice of appeal

Ghazi filed a notice March 10 with the Bulloch County Superior Court for Burgest’s potential appeal of the verdict and sentencing to the Georgia Court of Appeals. Cooper said the appeal would likely be handled by the Public Defender’s Office.