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Jurors in Agee case will see guns
YOUNGSTOWN
Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court ruled the jury in the case against 26-year-old Kevin Agee can see guns stored at the defendant’s house.
She also ruled jurors can hear testimony regarding cocaine found at the residence when Agee was arrested.
Testimony and argu- ments began earlier this week in Agee’s capital murder trial. He is charged in the mistaken- identity shooting of an elderly couple 19 months ago.
Authorities said Agee, with co-defendant Aubrey Toney, 30, 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.
Prosecutors say Toney and Agee thought the Repchics were two men with whom Toney had an ongoing dispute. The Repchics and one of the other men drove identical Cadillacs.
Defense lawyers Rhys Cartwright-Jones and James Gentile, representing Agee, asked the court not to allow into evidence a cache of guns found at Agee’s home when he was arrested. The guns in question were not used in the shooting, they argued.
Cartwright-Jones and Gentile also asked the court to not allow into evidence cocaine found by officers in Agee’s home when Agee was taken into custody.
Judge Sweeney overruled the defense attorneys request, citing comments made by Cartwright-Jones in his opening statements earlier this week.
Cartwright-Jones told jurors his client and Toney were planning to watch college football the day of the shooting and were driving around the city just before the shooting in search of marijuana.
The judge said the defense attorney’s mention of drugs opened the door to the drug issue, and the prosecutors can admit the cocaine into evidence.
The court’s ruling in regard to the guns was similar to the one regarding the drugs.
Judge Sweeney said the guns would be permitted into evidence because Cartwright-Jones, during his opening statement, told jurors his client was a witness to the crime, not party to any disputes, and had no idea what was going to take place.
She also ruled prosecutors could use the number of firearms and ammunition found in Agee’s home to rebut the defense lawyers’ claims.