PROSECUTOR: DEFENDANT’S KNIFE KILLED CLUB EMPLOYEE Feb. 15, 2008 A Suffolk County prosecutor today told a Superior Court jury that the widely respected head of security for a Lansdowne Street nightclub died because a murder defendant stabbed him in the abdomen, leading directly to the medical complications that claimed his life almost two weeks later. “Craig Viera died because this defendant, OSCAR ROSA (D.O.B. 10/22/86) murdered him,” Assistant District Attorney Rahsaan Hall said this morning during closing arguments in Rosa’s murder trial. “The defendant armed himself with a knife, came forward, lunged at Craig Viera, and stabbed him.” Hall addressed the panel of 12 jurors and four alternates after four days of testimony indicating that Rosa, now 21 and a Natick resident, and a group of his friends were asked repeatedly to leave the former Embassy Club in the early morning hours of Nov. 26, 2006. Club employees testified that Rosa was so disruptive inside the club that he was physically restrained and taken to the ground twice by security personnel before being ejected. Though Viera was not part of the security team that removed Rosa and his friends from the premises, Hall said, he supervised those employees and took charge of the scene outside the club – even going so far as to promise Rosa and his friends free admission the following weekend in a bid to bring calm to the situation. “Though Craig Viera had nothing to do with removing the defendant from the club,” Hall said, “he appeared to be in charge – he represented the people who had treated the defendant and his friends badly.” Instead of accepting the offer, however, Rosa and his friends remained in front of the club. As Viera tried to soothe their egos, Rosa allegedly pulled a knife, stepped forward, and drove it two to three inches into the Framingham bodybuilder’s abdomen. That injury lacerated Viera’s liver. Multiple witnesses – including bouncers who recognized Rosa as the man they had restrained earlier in the evening – testified that they saw the defendant swing at Viera and connect, describing a motion that accurately reflected a medical examiner’s description of the path left by the knife. “They saw Craig Viera standing in front of this group when this defendant came forward and swung at him, making a connection right here,” Hall said, gesturing toward his abdomen. Viera was hospitalized following the stabbing and initially survived. After being released, however, clots started to form in his blood. The physically powerful man began to have difficulty breathing as the clots collected in his lungs, and – despite his mother’s desperate efforts to resuscitate him – he died on Dec. 8, 2006, when he could no longer breathe. “The liver laceration put into effect a chain of events that, but for the defendant’s actions, would never have happened,” Hall said. “As a result, 13 days later, he lay lifeless in his mother’s arms.” Superior Court Judge Regina Quinlan will instruct jurors on the law and they will likely begin their deliberations early this afternoon. Return to the Press Releases page.