The three first-degree murder convictions of an Oakland County man for the drug-related slaying of a Warren family have been upheld by the state Court of Appeals.
Nicholas Bahri, 41, was sentenced to life without parole in 2022 for the cold-blooded shootings of Tokoyo Moore, 32, outside Bahri’s Bloomfield Hills home and of Moore’s 6-year-old son, Tai’Raz Moore, and his fiancée, Isis Rimson, 28, on Sept. 30 and Oct. 1, 2020, in their Warren home.
He also was sentenced to additional terms for convictions of six counts of felony firearm possession, felon in possession of a firearm, mutilation of a body and fourth-degree arson.
A three-judge panel rejected several arguments, mostly contending his trial attorney was ineffective, in Bahri’s automatic right to seek a reversal of the convictions.
Warren police accumulated a mountain of evidence against Bahri, as over 500 exhibits were entered introduced by Macomb prosecutors during the trial, including video from his home, where he resided with his parents, that depicted him shooting Moore in the car in the driveway. Bahri also was seen in video walking and entering a taxi cab in the Greektown area of Detroit following the slaying.
After killing Moore, Bahri was looking for money from drug dealing when he went to the family’s Otis Avenue home near Nine Mile and Dequindre roads with the Moore’s body in the car. Prosecutors say he shot Rimson and Tai’Raz multiple times as he demanded they reveal to him where to find money.
Prosecutors believe he found some cash, but police said they recovered about $56,000 of the Moore family’s money, a Rolex watch, jewelry and other items.
Moore’s mother, Katrina Evans, who represented her son’s estate, sued Warren in federal court for return of the funds, which she claimed should have been $200,000.
The case was dismissed Monday by U.S. District Judge F. Kay Behm after Warren agreed to return the $56,000 and the property, according to her attorney, Todd Perkins.
Perkins said the return of her son’s property was more important than the money because of the items’ sentimental value.
Last January, Behm maintained some of Evans’ claims in the lawsuit in response to Warren’s effort for dismissal on the claim they believe the money may have come from drug sale proceeds.
At Bahri’s preliminary examination in September 2021 in Warren’s 37th District Court, a distraught Evans attacked Bahri in court by stepping over a barrier and throwing punches at him before court officers could restrain her. She was handcuffed and removed from the courtroom but was not charged.
Assistant Macomb Prosecutors Carmen DeFranco and former assistant prosecutor Dana Chiamp tried the case.
The appeals court panel was composed of judges Christopher P. Yates, Stephen L. Borrello and Kristina Robinson Garrett.