D.C. MAN CONVICTED IN DEATH OF INFORMANT

Victim Was Attacked While Trying to Assist Probe of Triple Slaying at Starbucks

A Southeast Washington man was convicted yesterday of killing Eric Butera, a
police informant who was stomped to death in December 1997 while attempting
to help D.C. police solve a triple slaying at a Starbucks coffee shop.

Renaldo Antonio Mathis, whose nickname is "Bruiser," was among three
assailants who attacked Butera outside a Southwest Washington house,
prosecutors said. The attack began as a robbery and had nothing to do with
the Starbucks case, authorities said. Mathis, 35, was the most vicious
participant in the crime, repeatedly kicking the fallen Butera in the head,
prosecutors said.

A jury in D.C. Superior Court convicted Mathis of second-degree murder after
five days of often graphic testimony. Two witnesses testified that Mathis
stomped Butera's head into the sidewalk with his heavy work boots. Four
other witnesses said Mathis later admitted killing Butera, and three of them
said Mathis had vowed to take action against anyone who turned him in.

The slaying occurred as police were aggressively pursuing leads in the July
1997 killings of three employees of a Starbucks shop near Georgetown. Butera
came forward and said he had overheard people talking about the case in a
row house in Southwest Washington where he had bought cocaine.

With Butera's consent, D.C. police devised a plan that would enable them to
enter the house and question the people there. The plan called for Butera to
go to the house with $150 in marked bills and buy cocaine, clearing the way
for police to obtain a warrant. Detectives dropped Butera off near the house
in the 1000 block of Delaware Avenue SW, a neighborhood that has long been
plagued by crime, and waited for him in unmarked cars a block or two away.

The people at the house wouldn't let Butera inside. Then, "things went
terribly wrong," Assistant U.S. Attorney Kenneth L. Wainstein told the jury.

As Butera walked away, he was beaten and robbed by two men, later identified
by police as Keith Mathis and Robert Walker, Wainstein said. Renaldo Mathis
came by a short time later and inflicted the most damage, for no apparent
reason, the prosecutor said. Keith Mathis and Robert Walker earlier pleaded
guilty to robbery and assault charges in the case but did not testify.
Keith Mathis is Renaldo Mathis's brother, and Walker is Renaldo Mathis's nephew.

After his arrest, Renaldo Mathis gave police a videotaped statement in which
he said he kicked Butera's head "like a football," but he described the act
as a tap, not a "field goal." Defense attorney Donald Dworsky maintained
that Mathis was merely checking on Butera after the other two men had beaten
him and that the "real killers" were Keith Mathis and Walker.

Investigators later determined that the people in the house had no
information that was useful to the Starbucks investigation. Last month, they
arrested Carl Derek Havord Cooper and charged him with first-degree murder.

Butera's mother, Terry Butera, has filed a $115 million civil suit against
D.C. police, contending that they failed to adequately protect her son. She
said that her son, 31, was recovering from a drug problem and appeared to be
turning his life around. He was bothered by conversations he had heard about
the Starbucks killing, she said yesterday, and wanted to help solve the case.

Terry Butera was in court for the verdict and attended the entire trial. "It
was extremely difficult to listen to this testimony," she said. "I am
relieved to have this over, and I think justice was done in this case."

Terry Butera later said that she visited her son's grave after the verdict,
and "I told him he was doing a very brave thing when he was killed and how
proud I was for him."

Judge Nan R. Shuker said she will sentence Mathis on June 25. He faces a
term of 20 years to life in prison.