D.A. Drops Charges Against Snoop Doggy Dogg’s Friend : Courts: Prosecutors say move was made to get another defendant’s statement into evidence. Unless charges are refiled, it removes McKinley Lee’s attorney, Johnnie L. Cochran Jr., from the courtroom.

Prosecutors in the Snoop Doggy Dogg murder trial Monday dropped charges against a co-defendant who was in the rear seat of the rapper’s Jeep at the time of the alleged 1993 drive-by killing.

Although prosecutors Ed Nison and Bobby Grace said they will consider refiling murder charges against Sean Abrams later, the decision Monday removes from the courtroom--at least temporarily--a lawyer with whom the district attorney’s office had some trouble in a recent unrelated case: Johnnie L. Cochran Jr.

“My client shouldn’t have been here to begin with,” said Cochran, who had agreed to represent Abrams before O.J. Simpson was arrested last year. “He was overcharged. I think [the dismissal] is overdue and I think it’s appropriate.”

Outside court, Abrams quipped that he was “going to Disneyland.”

Abrams, Snoop (a.k.a Calvin Broadus) and McKinley Lee, the rapper’s former bodyguard, were accused of murder in the Aug. 25, 1993, shooting death of Philip Woldemariam, 20, in a West Los Angeles park.

Prosecutors believe Lee pulled the trigger in what authorities contend was a drive-by shooting, with Broadus, 24, at the wheel. Defense attorneys say that the shooting was in self-defense, while prosecutors contend that it was the result of a gang-related dispute.

Grace said they wanted the charges against Abrams dismissed to get into evidence an incriminating taped statement that Lee made to police about the crime.

Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Paul Flynn had ruled that the statement must be edited so it does not prejudice jurors against all of the defendants in the case. An appeals court backed his decision. Prosecutors, however, claimed that cutting the statement would limit their ability to show discrepancies in the defendants’ accounts of the crime.

Prosecutors also argued that, if the statement is edited, they can no longer play the tapes for the jury and will have to rely on the testimony of Los Angeles police officers, whose conduct has been called into question by defense attorneys.

In its motion to drop charges, the prosecution wrote that “the people believe that the dismissal of defendant Abrams will allow the critical and necessary portions of defendant Lee’s statement to be admitted into evidence, in its tape-recorded form.”

The prosecution also stated that Abrams, 22, a longtime friend of Broadus, “is a less active participant in the charged crime than defendant Lee,” and dropping the murder charge against him will “serve the interests of justice.”

Nison said the prosecution will consider refiling charges against Abrams at a later date. “It’s not our intention to let him walk on this case,” he said.

Nevertheless, Woldemariam’s family members said they were disappointed with Monday’s action. “What happened just now was a murderer was let go,” said Woldemariam’s sister, Sophia. “That’s what happened.”

Her brother, Yohannes, added: “We have to trust that the prosecution is doing the right thing.”