Witness Says He Was Urged to Call Fight a Racial Brawl

A witness to a brawl that left a 15-year-old girl seriously injured in August testified Tuesday that the girl told him he could make $1,000 if he told police that the fight was racially motivated.

The testimony came in the preliminary hearing for Kurt David Wimberly, 18, who is charged with mayhem for allegedly throwing a shard of glass that slashed Amber Jefferson’s face from her temple to her neck.

Jefferson and her family have alleged that the Aug. 6 attack was racially motivated, an allegation that caused local civil rights activists to rally around them. The girl’s mother is white; her father is black.

But state, local and federal officials declined to file hate-crime charges. The Orange County district attorney’s office concluded the fight stemmed from an argument between two girls over Wimberly.

Under intense questioning by the prosecutor, Matt Stewart, 17, testified that he, Amber and some other friends had gone looking for Wimberly’s girlfriend the night of the fight. The group pulled up to the girlfriend’s apartment in Stanton and confronted her. Shortly after that, Wimberly and some of his friends appeared, some with baseball bats, and the fight broke out.

“Amber told me to lie and say it was racially motivated so we could get $1,000 apiece,” Stewart said.

Prosecutors did not question Stewart further as to where the money was to have come from.

Stewart, who had made similar statements to police, also testified that Jefferson’s mother, Cody Donnelly, had threatened him in the hallway of the courtroom before he took the stand. “She told me, why am I lying and I better watch out,” he said.

As a result, West Orange County Municipal Court Judge J. Michael Beecher barred Donnelly from the proceedings.

Donnelly angrily denounced Stewart’s testimony as a lie. “The truth is bad enough in this case,” Donnelly said outside court. “I told Matt to do us all a favor and just tell the truth. I would never threaten a child.”