Deliberations start in murder trial of 2

An FBI informant completed his testimony.
YOUNGSTOWN -- Jury deliberations are scheduled to begin today in the aggravated murder trial of Stephan Breedlove and Glenn R. Scott.
The two Youngstown men are on trial in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court in the fatal shooting of 16-year-old James Revere on Nov. 23, 2003, on Youngstown's North Side. A third defendant, Keon L. Richardson, will go on trial later this summer.
Final testimony and closing arguments were heard Monday in Judge Jack M. Durkin's courtroom.
In a courtroom cleared of spectators as a result of a motion by prosecutors, jurors heard the completion of the testimony of prosecution rebuttal witness Lorice Jones. Jones is an FBI informant who described himself as a longtime acquaintance of Scott's.
Jones' testimony, which began Friday, centered on a conversation he had with Scott when both were in the Mahoning County Jail after Scott's arrest.
Jones said that Scott, the oldest of the three defendants, admitted to him that he took part in the shooting.
Prosecutor Tim Franken read Jones an edited transcript of a 10-minute videotaped statement that Jones made to Youngstown police Dec. 4, 2003.
In it, Jones said that Scott told him that he was driving the car and that all three were shooting at Revere.
"He said he was the head guy. He's older than them, so it's like they follow in his lead," Jones said in the transcript.
On cross examination, Attorney Ted Macejko Jr., representing Scott, questioned Jones about how much Jones knew about the facts of the case.
"Do you know what time the shooting occurred? Do you know when the witnesses might have seen the three men in the car?" Macejko asked.
"No, I don't," Jones said.
Attempts to discredit Jones
Macejko and attorney Louis DeFabio, representing Breedlove, questioned Jones about his criminal record, which includes convictions for robbery, theft of drugs and receiving stolen property.
DeFabio also pointed out inconsistencies between Jones' testimony Friday and the statements on the videotape.
"Are you saying your memory was clearer then than it is now?" DeFabio said.
"No," Jones answered.
In closing arguments, assistant county prosecutor Gina Buccino-Arnaut told jurors, "This case boils down to eyewitness testimony."
She reviewed the testimony of Anita Marshall and Arielle Brown, who said that they saw all three accused men in the car that trailed Revere to the area near Hayman and Covington streets.
She recounted the cell phone call Revere placed to Shalonda Bonazi, a prosecution witness, in the minutes before the shooting, and that Revere said, "I'm cutting corners and I can't lose them."
Buccino-Arnaut also encouraged jurors to discount Scott's alibi, that he was at the home of a cousin sleeping when the shootings took place.
"It doesn't make sense," she said. "Nobody called the police to say that my cousin is accused of a murder, but he was here all the time."
Look at inconsistencies
In their closing statements, Macejko and DeFabio urged jurors to consider the credibility of the witnesses, and pointed out differences between their testimony during the trial and the statements they made to police in the days after the shooting.
"Where were you standing? Who did you talk to? What did you see?" DeFabio said. "These are not minor inconsistencies."
DeFabio told the jurors that in weighing testimony, they should consider whether the testimony is reasonable, whether witnesses had the opportunity to actually see the things they testified to, the accuracy of their memory and the manner in which they testified.
During the day's proceedings, Judge Durkin denied a motion for mistrial from DeFabio based on the attorney's contention that prosecutors introduced new evidence after resting their case.