Prosecution Abruptly Rests in Cosby Case

In a shocking maneuver that even caught defense lawyers off guard, Deputy Dist. Atty. Anne Ingalls on Friday rested the prosecution’s case against the man accused of killing entertainer Bill Cosby’s son without calling two crucial witnesses who could have allegedly placed the defendant at the murder scene.

The decision left some observers believing that the prosecution rested because it feared those two witnesses’ criminal records and current legal problems would destroy their credibility.

“Their witnesses were going south fast,” said Laurie Levenson, a Loyola University law school professor who has been monitoring the trial.

Stan Goldman, another Loyola law professor who has sat through the trial, said closing without witnesses who put the defendant, Mikail Markhasev, at the scene weakens the case.

“It’s not exactly a massive case,” he said.

“I’m floored,” said Deputy Alternate Public Defender Henry J. Hall in a rare public comment as he left the courtroom.

Ingalls was not talking outside court, but one source close to the case said the prosecutor simply believed that the two witnesses--Eli Zakaria, 24, and Sara Peters, 22, who were with Markhasev the night Ennis Cosby was killed--were simply not needed.

“She thinks the evidence presented puts him there,” the source said.

The surprising conclusion came after three dramatic developments Friday.

* Ingalls brought Zakaria, the man defense lawyers say is the real killer, into the courtroom wearing handcuffs and an orange jail jumpsuit to stand before the jury to demonstrate that he looks nothing like Markhasev or the man depicted in a composite of the killer. He stood for several minutes, turned in place twice and left the courtroom under armed escort without saying a word.

* Michael Chang, a key prosecution witness who was expected to say he heard Markhasev admit the killing, again refused to obey a court order to testify and was held in contempt. The prosecution needed him to tell how he allegedly helped Markhasev in an unsuccessful search for the murder weapon and that he heard Markhasev say he would look for the gun again later.

* And jury members sat spellbound as they listened to a secretly recorded telephone conversation between Markhasev and Chang that was laced with vulgarities, street language, drug talk and conversation about killing a “rat.” Following along with a transcript, jurors heard an angry Markhasev tell Chang to “Shut the f--- up” for talking about the gun over the telephone. Markhasev said on the tape that he never went back to find the weapon.

*

Ingalls’ decision to rest left Hall unprepared to begin presentation of his case. Because his subpoenas did not require witnesses to be in court until Wednesday, Perez adjourned the trial until then.

Cosby, 27, who was on winter break from his doctoral studies at Columbia University in New York, was killed en route to visit friend Stephanie Crane in Sherman Oaks on Jan. 16, 1997. He stopped on Skirball Center Drive off the San Diego Freeway to change a flat tire. Crane, who lived just a few minutes away, drove out to help him.

The prosecution says that Markhasev, Zakaria and his girlfriend, Sara Peters, had stopped at a park-and-ride lot about 450 feet away to use a telephone. Markhasev, authorities allege, went to rob Cosby but ended up killing him, after which the three sped away and discarded the gun.

Crane saw the killer and helped the police develop a composite sketch.

A few days later, Markhasev, Chang and Christopher So, who is a friend of Chang, drove to where the gun was discarded. So said Thursday he heard Markhasev tell Chang, “I killed a n-----. It’s big and it’s all over the news.” He said Markhasev became frantic when they couldn’t find the gun and said he had to come back later and look for it. Eventually, police searched the area and found the gun.

When Chang refused to testify, that left the prosecution without a crucial backup for So’s statement. Ingalls needed that corroboration because the defense pointed out Friday that So stands to earn a $100,000 reward from the tabloid National Enquirer if his information leads to the conviction of Markhasev.

Even Crane could not identify Markhasev, and she picked out a different man from a police lineup. But she described the man she saw that night as a clean-shaven, tall, thin man with “pointy” facial features. Police used that description to draw the composite, which was printed and broadcast across the country.

Zakaria and Peters are the only ones who could have said that Markhasev was at the crime scene.

But a source close to the case said the prosecution thinks it has plenty of other evidence that ties him to the crime: letters that they say Markhasev wrote in jail in which he virtually admitted to the crime; a hair from a knit cap, which was wrapped around the murder weapon and produced DNA material matching Markhasev’s; and testimony from Gabe Drapel, who lived a mile from the scene, who said Markhasev, Zakaria and Peters left his home a few minutes before Cosby was killed.

*

The prosecution thinks So passed the defense’s long cross-examination Friday with flying colors.

The defense failed to show any serious discrepancies in his story of the day Markhasev searched for the gun.

Prosecutors also believe Zakaria’s silent pose in front of the jury was critical. Zakaria was clean-shaven, short with a squared, slightly chubby face, characteristics that contrasted sharply with Markhasev’s tall, wiry frame.

Also Friday, Ingalls called a police detective who played for jurors the obscenity-laced tape of Markhasev and Chang in which Chang, cooperating with police, tried to get Markhasev to make incriminating statements.

Although transcripts show Markhasev denied knowing anything about the Cosby killing, it is clear he suspected the call was bugged by police, a source said. In addition, the language and speech pattern seem to mirror that found in the jailhouse letters allegedly written by Markhasev.

The language and street talk stripped away the handsome, clean-cut image Markhasev portrayed in the courtroom.

Levenson, the Loyola professor, agreed.

“Markhasev, sitting in the courtroom, doesn’t give off the image of a killer,” she said. “The conversation does. It paints him as somebody out of control, capable of criminal activity.”

Noting the loss of Chang’s testimony and the serious legal problems that Zakaria and Peters face which left them vulnerable to a strong cross-examination, Levenson said the prosecution may have been wise to rest its case.

“The prosecution sometimes figures it’s better to go with a thinner case than to watch your witnesses explode on you.”