Jury returns guilty verdicts in Moldovan shooting case

A jury has found Essa Williams guilty in the near-fatal 2021 shooting of Phoenix Police Officer Tyler Moldovan, according to the Arizona Daily Independent's report on the verdict issued last week.

Per the ADI account, jurors convicted Williams of three charges: attempt to commit first degree murder of a law enforcement officer, a class two felony, along with two counts of aggravated assault, one a class two felony and one a class three felony.

The Maricopa County Attorney's Office stated that Williams "continued to shoot the officer even after the officer was on the ground." That characterization, cited by ADI, laid out a grim sequence that jurors evidently credited in returning guilty findings.

ADI reported that Williams shot Moldovan eight times, including once in the head, on December 14, 2021. Moldovan was initially not expected to survive, but after a month on life support he was transferred to a rehabilitation facility to begin recovery, the outlet reported.

The ADI article described Williams as a "career criminal" and said he fought with officers when they tried to apprehend him. Those details come from ADI's reporting and the county attorney's public statements it cited.

What is firm today is the result: a jury verdict establishing criminal liability for the attack on a Phoenix officer. ADI did not publish a sentencing date or further procedural steps, and no additional court records were included in the report.

Policy questions inevitably follow cases like this. ADI flagged a related article raising questions about how Williams was on the streets in the first place, but it did not elaborate in the verdict story. Without the underlying documents, those debates remain claims to be examined in the record, not conclusions to be assumed.

The human toll is not abstract. ADI's reporting on Moldovan's survival arc underscores both the severity of the attack and the stakes for front-line policing in Phoenix. Recovery is measured in years, not headlines.

From a governance standpoint, this is the rare public-safety story with a clear, completed step: a jury weighed the evidence and returned guilty verdicts. Everything else, including any sentencing timetable or appeals, was not detailed in the ADI account and awaits the court's docket.

Saguaro Signal will update if and when official court records or the Maricopa County Attorney's Office release additional information on sentencing, filings, or next steps in State v. Williams.