Showing posts with label david drucker. Show all posts
Showing posts with label david drucker. Show all posts

Thursday, April 12, 2012

Former Bad Boy Rapper G Dep charged with murder (G.Dep's Defense Says Not Enough Evidence to Connect Client to Murder)


Trevell "G. Dep" Coleman has already admitted to shooting a man three times in a botched robbery attempt back in 1993. He just believes he's being linked to the wrong man's death.

That was made obvious during day two of Coleman's murder trial at Part 51 of the Supreme Criminal Court on 100 Centre Street in Lower Manhattan on Wednesday (April 11). The day saw Coleman's lawyer, Anthony Ricco, further questioning the evidence brought forth by the detectives on the case.

"There's things that they said under oath, on the record that they're claiming Trevell said even before they looked at the logs," Ricco told XXL upon exiting Part 51 of the courthouse on Wednesday. "The obvious (inconsistencies) are [Coleman] gives a description of a different person that the other witnesses said was robbed on that day. Those differences are substantial, they're not minor. He also doesn't fit the description of the persons that the 911 caller said seen shoot him. There's always a desire to close cold cases. So, when a guy comes forward and admits to being involved in a shooting, [police] then try to link."

On a cold night in December 2010, Coleman walked into the 25th Precinct in Harlem to make the startling confession that he shot a man in a botched robbery attempt back in 1993. At the time of the admission, Coleman didn't know if the man he shot had died or not. Cops subsequently matched Dep's admission to the cold case murder of John Henkel, 43, who was shot and killed during a robbery attempt in 1993 on Park Avenue and 114 Street. Coleman is facing 15 years to life if found guilty of Henkel's murder.

Ricco, though, maintains that they're too many inconsistencies to match Dep to Henkel's killing.

When court resumed after a lunch break on Wednesday, prosecution played Coleman's chilling confession video for the 14 jurors of mixed ethnicities on two large monitors.In the video, Dep admits to shooting a man "three times" in a robbery attempt. He says he lived with the guilt of shooting a man, only telling his mother about the incident in 2008.

"I told her that it bothered me," Dep said on tape. "She said, 'Well, that was a long time ago...in the past."

Before Wednesday's break, Manhattan Assistant District Attorney David Drucker and Ricco examined and cross examined witnesses, including detectives David Feliciano from the 25th Precinct and William Dunn from the 23rd Precinct, whom Coleman first broke his confession to in December 2010.They also grilled Julio Cardona, a 43-year-old former resident of the Johnson Housing Projects in Harlem, who recounted how he saw one White male, two separate Black males and two "dark-skinned Hispanic" males who he said were suspiciously riding around on their bicycles the day of Henkel's shooting.

"They have to prove their case and you have to look at what the proof is," Ricco continued to tell XXL after Wednesday's day in court. "They're saying [Coleman] told them that [Henkel] is 32. There's no way in the world Trevell could tell them he's 32. How does he know that? Only way he could know that is if he knew him. According to one witness, he's going to say White male, according to another he's a Hispanic male. There's no, 'I'm not sure about that, I didn't see the log till after that.' Our position is the evidence will show that it's not accurate.

"Why is he connected to this?" he added. "[Coleman] never said, 'I shot Mr. Henkel!' He never said that."

Dep, wearing a black shirt and blue jeans, had the support of wife Crystal Sutton and father Willie Goines in the courtroom with him. Upon walking out the court today, Goines raised his fist in the air as a sign of support, a gesture to which his son nodded to.

The murder trial for the former Bad Boy rapper, who made hits like "Let's Get It" and "Special Delivery," will continue on Friday (April 13) with the remainder of the evidence being presented to jurors.Check back with 3m360 for updates on the G. Dep murder trial.--Mark Lelinwalla

G. Dep's murder trial began Tuesday (April 10) in New York's Supreme Criminal Court

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