Prosecutors target Agee's changing statements

YOUNGSTOWN — After months of postering and weeks of jury selection, the trial of 26-year-old Kevin Agee is under way with prosecutors taiking aim at Agee's changing statements.

Authorities said Agee, with co-defendant 30-year-old Aubrey Toney, shot and killed Thomas Repchic, 74, of Trenton Avenue, blocks away from the victim’s home on the city’s South Side in September 2010. Repchic’s wife Jacqueline, 74 at the time, was wounded and ultimately lost a leg as a result of the shooting.

Robert Andrews, an assistant county prosecutor, told members of the jury Agee claims to have been merely the driver of the car used in the driveby shooting, with Toney as a passenger firing the deadly shots. However, he said, Agee and Toney are equally guilty in the crime, noting the cache of weapons found at Agee’s home and his changing statements to police.

Attorney Rhys Cartwright-Jones, representing Agee, admits his client was present at the time of the shooting and driving the Dodge Durango used in the driveby, but said Agee had no knowledge of Toney’s plans to shoot two men with whom Toney had been feuding.

He said his client is a witness to a horrific crime, but not guilty of any wrongdoing.

The opening statements took place this morning in Judge Maureen Sweeney’s Mahoning County Common Pleas courtroom.

A panel of seven men and five women, plus four alternate jurors have been seated to hear the case.

Toney is a co-defendant in the case, but because both men face the death penalty if convicted, they will have separate trials.

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