The Trial of Ennis Cosby’s Killer

By LINDA DEUTSCH

AP Special Correspondent

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – A prosecutor opened her case against Mikail Markhasev today by seeking to prove through his own jailhouse writings that he is the killer of Ennis Cosby, pointing out that the defendant himself wrote it was “a robbery gone bad.”

In her opening statement, Deputy District Attorney Anne Ingalls recon­structed for jurors the scene at the side of the road where Cosby was shot to death. And, with friends and family of Bill Cosby in the courtroom, she dis­played graphic photos of the younger Cosby lying beside his car in a pool of blood.

Henry Hall, the lawyer for the defend­ant, said the case was a tragedy for both the Cosby and Markhasev families but insisted that police have charged the wrong man and that Markhasev is inno­cent.

By the end of the case, Hall said, “We will know who the killer is and it’s not him.”

Ingalls quoted Markhasev as using a racial epithet in allegedly confessing that he committed the killing and saying, “It’s all over the news.”

But Hall said that the racial epithet should not be part of the case.

“This case is not about racially charged issues, ethnicities or countries of origin, ... “ he said. “It is about whether my client, Mr. Markhasev, is the person who shot and killed Ennis Cosby ... This case is about a chance meeting. It’s also a case full of mystery.”

Cosby’s only son, Ennis, 27, a gradu­ate student at Columbia University, was fatally shot on Jan. 16, 1997, while changing a flat tire on a dark road.

Markhasev, 19, a Ukrainian immi­grant with a history of gang affiliations and a previous brush with the law, was arrested nearly two months later.

The letter attributed by the prosecu­tor to Markhasev describes a plan to go to Bel-Air, a wealthy area of Los Ange­les, and rob “a connection,” apparently a drug dealer. But the letter says the target was not home.

The letter includes the statement: “The crime happened in Bel-Air. A rob­bery gone bad.” It concludes: “I went to rob a connection and obviously found something else.” It closes with a picture of a happy face and is signed “Peewee.”

Ingalls called as her first witness police Detective John Garcia, who showed jurors enlargements of many letters allegedly written by Markhasev in jail to members of a Mexican prison gang.

The letters are filled with Spanish words and repeatedly refer to the recipi­ents as “my homies.”

The trial has gotten off to a speedy start. The jury of six men and six women was selected in less than two days last week, and Superior Court Judge David Perez has said he expects the panel to get the case by July 10.

Perez, 60, a 22-year veteran of the bench, has also decreed there will be no cameras in his courtroom because he does not want the trial to become a “TV episode.”

“The absence of television cameras will lower the media temperature in this case,” said UCLA Law School Professor. Peter Arenella. “Without video footage to feed the magazine shows, it will not. attract the same type of attention.”

The nature of the case itself is also likely to tone down coverage, Arenella said.

“You don’t have an interesting defen­dant, and the only celebrity involved is the father of the victim, who’s doing his level best not to intrude on the proceedings,” Arenella said. “It will be simple justice.”

Bill Cosby was not expected at the trial.

During an appearance last weekend in Los Angeles, Cosby said “the family wants dignity” at the trial. Previously he and his wife, Camille, have said only that they want jurisprudence to take its course.

In an earlier court session, Ingalls described the case as “a gang case” and said many of her witnesses would come from the world of gangs and drug deals. The defense cited the possibility that the witnesses would have reasons to lie under oath.

“We’re talking about people who had a motive to lay this crime off on Mikail Markhasev,” said Hall. “We’re not dealing with untainted people here.”

Hall has promised to show that one of the key prosecution witnesses, Eli  Zakaria, is more likely to be the killer than Markhasev.

By LINDA DEUTSCH

AP Special Correspondent

 

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – Prosecutors in the Ennis Cosby murder trial wrapped up their case with a strange twist, showing jurors a man the defense says is the real killer, but without asking him any questions.

The abrupt finish came Friday after just five days of testimony.

Prosecutor Anne Ingalls had Los Angeles County sheriff’s deputies march Eli Zakaria into the courtroom in handcuffs and a jail jumpsuit. It was a dramatic appearance by the man defense attorneys claim killed Bill Cosby’s only son.

Zakaria said nothing, but was told to stand only inches from the jury, so the panelists could get a good look. He was then taken out of the courtroom.

“The people have no further wit­nesses,” Ingalls announced, without warning. Said Public Defender Henry Hall: “I’m obviously floored by the events of the last five minutes.”

The defense told jurors in opening statements that Zakaria is the person depicted in a composite drawing of the killer. The prosecution claims the draw­ing is a match for Mikail Markhasev, the 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant who is on trial.

The prosecution had listed Zakaria and his girlfriend, Sara Peters, on the witness list but never called them to testify. Police have said Zakaria and Peters were in a car with Markhasev the night Cosby was shot to death.

Laurie Levenson, dean of the Loyola University law school, said the prosecutor’s move was a surprise.

“If they said they had a mountain of evidence in the O. J. Simpson trial, this is a molehill,” she said. “It’s a lot thinner than what people expect in a high-profile case.”

Hall said he was not ready to present defense witnesses on Monday. The judge gave him until Wednesday, after hearings on who may testify.

Moments before she brought Zakaria into court, Ingalls called a detective who played an obscenity-laced tape of Markhasev and friend Michael Chang, in which Chang, cooperating with police, tried to get Markhasev to make incrimi­nating statements.

“They’re talking about the Cosby thing,” Chang said at one point, complaining that he is being harassed by police.

“I don’t know anything about no Cosby thing,” Markhasev says. “I don’t know what the (obscenity) you’re talk­ing about. What’s Cosby got to do with this?”

On the tape, Markhasev hints he is fearful the conversation is being recorded, telling Chang, “What’s wrong with you, you’re talking from a work phone.”

Chang had suggested he was calling from his job although he was actually sitting in the Los Angeles Police Depart­ment’s robbery-homicide division.

The conversation ends with Markha­sev suggesting Chang should come and see him in person at his home because they needed to talk.

“You didn’t do anything wrong,” Markhasev said. “What are you worried about? I didn’t do anything wrong either. Everything’s cool.”

LAPD Detective Michael Bercham testified about how the tape was made. He said Markhasev was under surveil­lance and surrounded on March 12, 1997, at his home.

Chang, who was held in contempt for refusing to testify, was present when Markhasev admitted shooting a black man and helped him in an unsuccessful search for a gun, according to another witness, Christopher So.

A police search later located a gun wrapped in a knit cap, which police wit­nesses said contained a single hair that had DNA matching Markhasev’s.

Cosby, 27, was shot as he changed a flat tire along a dark road on Jan. 16, 1997. The prosecutor has said Markha­sev is a member of the Mexican mafia prison gang.

So was the only witness to say Markhasev admitted shooting a black man, and he described Markhasev frantically searching for a gun about five miles from the killing scene days later.

But So has also told jurors that a tabloid newspaper paid him $40,000 for interviews and promised him $100,000 reward if it led to a conviction. He acknowledged becoming involved in the case only after The National Enquirer announced a reward and said he never went to police with his claims.

Police came to him after his contact with the Enquirer. Markhasev’s defense suggested that So, a convicted embezzler, was less than forthright.

Levenson said the key evidence is a series of incriminating jailhouse letters said to be written by Markhasev, the tiny hair tied to Markhasev through DNA analysis, So’s testimony and the audio tape.

“This is Markhasev vs. Markhasev, she said. “If he had kept his mouth shut and his pen down, he wouldn’t be sitting in the courtroom.”

Schwartz, Jerry: (2002) Associated Press Reporting Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY; pp. 77-78

By LINDA DEUTSCH

AP Special Correspondent

 

SANTA MONICA, Calif. (AP) – A young man with a history of gang affili­ations was found guilty Tuesday in the slaying of Bill Cosby’s only son, Ennis, as he changed a flat tire on a dark and lonely road last year.

Several members of the Cosby family, including two of the victim’s sisters, Erika and Erinn, wept and hugged as the verdicts were read. The entertainer and his wife were not in the courtroom.

Mikail Markhasev, a 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant, also was con­victed of attempting to rob Cosby and using a firearm in the commission of attempted robbery.

The jury’s finding on all counts auto­matically mandates a life prison term with no possibility of parole. Formal sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 1I.

“The Cosby family is satisfied with the judicial process that has led to this conviction,” Cosby spokesman David Brokaw said. “They have no comment on the sentencing.”

Prosecutors had opted not to seek the death penalty, but did not give a reason. The defendant’s age was believed to be a major consideration.

Included in the family group in court was Phil Caputo, the man who played basketball with Ennis Cosby hours before he was killed. Caputo had tears in his eyes as he heard the word” guilty.”

The family of Markhasev never made it to the courtroom in time to hear the ver­dicts. Markhasev stood stonefaced, star­ing at the jury as the verdicts were read.

Defense attorney Henry Hall said of his client’s reaction to the life sentence: “He’s 19 years old and it doesn’t take a rocket scientist to figure out how he feels about that,” Hall said.

He blamed the media rather than the celebrity of the Cosby family for the conviction.

Cosby, 27, a vacationing graduate stu­dent from Columbia University, was fatally shot Jan. 16, 1997, while changing a flat tire on a dark road near Bel-Air. Markhasev was arrested nearly two months later.

The victim was a child of privilege who overcame the adversity of learning problems and was on the brink of receiving his master’s degree in special education.

His father, eloquent in his grief, summed up his loss simply after the shooting: “He was my hero.”

Cosby was shot on his way to meet a new acquaintance, Stephanie Crane, who would testify that Cosby called and said he had a flat. She offered to help, drove to his location and used her car’s headlights to illuminate his mother’s Mercedes­Benz while he changed the tire.

Nearby, three people had stopped their car near a public telephone, the prosecu­tor said; one of them was Markhasev, who had served time in a juvenile correctional facility.

Crane remembered only that she was sitting in her Jaguar when a young man approached.

“All of a sudden a man’s face appeared in my window,” she testified. “He said, ‘Open your door or I’ll shoot.’ “

The witness said she pulled forward, thinking that if she shined her car’s lights on the man he would be scared away.

“When I turned around I couldn’t see Ennis. I started screaming, ‘Ennis! Ennis!’ . . . Then I saw this person in the distance running. I looked down and I saw Ennis on the ground.”

Who was the man who ran away? Crane couldn’t tell. She failed to pick Markhasev out of a police lineup.

Crane was the prosecution’s only eye­witness.

The jury, which heard testimony over two weeks, spent less than six hours talking over the case before accepting the prosecution’s argument that Markhasev had been convicted by his own words.

“The whole thing was open and shut, or at least close to that. The evidence was there loud and clear,” said juror Joseph Burnett Vagner, 78.

Prosecutor Anne Ingalls had used a series of jailhouse letters she said were written by the defendant and a profanity-­laced recorded phone conversation in which Markhasev sounded frantic and concerned that a friend was mentioning Cosby’s name.

The prosecution also relied on a single

tiny hair linked to the defendant by DNA testing. The hair was found in a knit cap wrapped around the gun identi­fied as the murder weapon.

Ingalls had unsuccessfully lobbied the judge to keep jurors’ names secret in the case, saying the defendant was a “made” member of the Mexican mafia and that jurors could be subject to retaliation. A “made” member is one who is formally initiated into a gang.    

The defense claimed that police arrested the wrong man, that letters were forged and the phone conversation was the prattling of a teen-ager discussing a dope deal.

The case went to the jury Monday after Bill Cosby made his first court appearance on the last day of arguments. He had stayed away from the trial until then, saying he wanted to preserve the dignity of the proceeding.

Defense attorneys attacked the testimony of informant Christopher So, who led police to where the gun was found, and said he heard Markhasev tell another friend: “I shot a nigger. It’s all over the news. It’s big.”

The defense attorneys said jurors should not accept the word of a con­victed felon who sold his story to the National Enquirer.

Ingalls had said that Markhasev essentially convicted himself with letters he wrote in jail referring to details of the crime.

“The letters are everything in this case,” Ingalls said, and went on to read statements such as: “It was a robbery gone bad.

Outside the courthouse, District Attorney Gill Garcetti said: “We are pleased that justice was done in this case, we are pleased for the Cosby family,”

Schwartz, Jerry: (2002) Associated Press Reporting Handbook, McGraw-Hill, New York, NY; pp. 79-80