California v. Markhasev
"The Ennis Cosby Murder Trial"
Cosby trial opens, will examine a "robbery gone bad"
June 22 (Court TV) -- It was "a robbery gone bad."
That's how Mikail Markhasev allegedly described the crime for which he is now being tried,
the shooting of entertainer Bill Cosby's son Ennis.
Prosecutor Anne Ingalls relied heavily on letters Markhasev allegedly wrote in
jail as she opened her case.
"I went to rob a connection and obviously found something else," said one letter Ingalls
presented that ended with a smiley face and a signature from "Peewee," believed to be
Markhasev's jailhouse moniker.
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Mikail Markhasev: His defense claims prosecutors have the wrong man.
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Ingalls used testimony from handwriting expert Karen Chiarodit, who said each of the five
letters Ingalls presented matched Markhasev's writing samples.
she would bring to the stand Michael Chang, who informed on
Markhasev.
Ingalls also told the jury
She said Chang would testify that Markhasev told him: "I shot a nigger. It's all over the news."
And it was in jail that Markhasev became a member of the Mexican Mafia, she said.
Defense attorney Henry Hall spent much of his day trying to battle back Chiarodit's testimony, insisting that the letters contain several errors about the facts of Cosby's killing and questioning their source -- informant David Gomez, who Hall reminded the jury is a federal inmate facing multiple charges from rape to forgery.
The defense maintains that Eli Zakaria, an acquaintance of Markhasev's who was with him the night of Cosby's murder, was responsible for shooting Cosby.
Ingalls said she would put Zakaria, a convicted felon, on the stand.
Cosby was shot to death on a roadside in Bel-Air on January 16, 1997 after stopping to change a flat tire.
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