Attorney questions detective’s tactics

Jurors will resume
deliberations today.

By ED RUNYAN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Defense attorney Samuel Amendolara went on the attack Monday during closing arguments of an aggravated murder trial, questioning the way a Youngstown police detective questioned a witness and the type of photo lineup he used to implicate his client in the crime.

Amendolara, who represents Gary Crockett, 30, of Buckeye Circle, Youngstown, told jurors that the videotaped interview they watched of Youngstown Police Detective Rick Spotleson interviewing Crockett’s girlfriend, Tara Rust, should not be believed because Spotleson coerced her into saying what he wanted to hear.

Rust told police that she saw Crockett getting into a green Bonneville the morning of Nov. 3 and returning about 45 minutes later, at which time he removed an AK-47 rifle. She also testified that co-defendant Eric Lewis, Crockett’s cousin, showed up at the John Street home Crockett and Rust shared about 45 minutes later.

Police contend that during the 45 minutes Crockett was gone, he, Lewis, 19, and Bertrum Moore, 19, killed Martwain Dill, 23, at the corner of Glenwood and Earle avenues on the South Side in broad daylight.

Police say Crockett and Lewis were the gunmen and Moore was the driver. Lewis and Moore were previously convicted and sentenced to prison terms of 33 years to life and 20 years to life, respectively.

When defense attorneys asked Rust later why she told police those things, she said, “Because I felt I had to. They [police] made me,” Amendolara said.

He added that the police department was “on a mission to solve a crime” and used questionable tactics on Rust to force her to say things that were not true, such as threatening her with being charged with a crime.

In his statement to the jury, assistant county Prosecutor Steven Shandor countered: “The police are intimidating. That’s just the way it is. That doesn’t mean they did anything wrong.”

Amendolara reminded jurors that Keith B. Tillis Jr., 19, was unable to pick Crockett out of a lineup initially. Tillis was seen leaving the Life Skills Academy on Market Street with Lewis and Moore that morning and testified that Crockett was one of the men who participated in the 11 a.m. shooting.

In the first lineup of six men that Spotleson showed Tillis, Crockett and a relative were included. Tillis picked out Crockett and his relative and said one of them was the man who got out of the car and fired a gun at Dill.

Spotleson showed Crockett another photo lineup a day or two later that showed a more recent photo of Crockett, but this lineup didn’t include Crockett’s relative, Amendolara noted. Such a tactic insinuated to Tillis that he was supposed to pick out Crockett, Amendolara said.

Likewise, police and the prosecutor’s office charged Tillis with aggravated murder like the three other men in the case to “hold a hammer over his head to testify against Gary Crockett,” Amendolara said.

The jury of six men and six women deliberated for about three hours Monday before quitting for the day. Deliberations will resume this morning. Visiting Judge Charles J. Bannon is presiding over the case in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court.

If convicted of the charges against him, Crockett could be sent to prison for 20, 25 or 30 years to life, plus additional time for using a firearm.

runyan@vindy.com