Two convicted, one acquitted after controversial murder case

Two of the three defendants were convicted late Friday of first-degree murder in the August 2021 shooting of 19-year-old Samad Montgomery in Chester.

Khasir Bennett, 20, and Marlon Cooper, 21, were each also found guilty of conspiracy, theft and firearms offences, but found not guilty of theft and conspiracy to commit theft.

The third defendant, Hakeem Montes, 21, was found not guilty on all charges.

The trial lasted all week and was sometimes interrupted by angry confrontations between friends and family of the defendants and the victim in the courthouse hallways, requiring the intervention of Park Police and sheriff’s deputies. One man was charged with witness intimidation and related offenses after he was allegedly caught turned out to be a livestreamed testimony from his cell phone.

Deputy District Attorney Matthew Krouse had told the jury before Common Pleas Court Judge Dominic Pileggi that each member of the trio played a role in luring Montgomery to his death just before 5 a.m. on August 7, 2021, in the 1200 block of Cover Lane.

Police were called to the scene in front of 1208 Clover at 4:58 a.m. and responded within minutes, Krouse said. They found Montgomery lying outside the open driver’s side door of a vehicle on the east side of the street and ten fired shell casings – one 9mm and nine .223 caliber – directly across the street.

After police established a perimeter in front of the crime scene, Bennett and Cooper approached and attempted to enter the area, telling an officer they might be able to help identify the body. The officer denied them entry, so they tried to get another citizen to enter the perimeter to “find a phone,” with similar results.

The phone was left at the scene and contained Bennett’s DNA and Cooper’s fingerprint. It had also been used to call Montgomery’s phone several times that night, including four calls between 4:54 a.m. and 4:56 a.m.

Montgomery’s phone was not found at the scene and has never been recovered, Krouse said.

A forensic extraction of the phone left at the scene revealed that Bennett tried to obtain a gun that evening from a known straw buyer, who also testified to that fact. Montes’ Instagram was also logged in on that phone and someone using the phone also tried with some urgency to obtain a firearm from someone else around the same period.

In closing, Krouse argued that the series of calls to Montgomery’s phone and simultaneous attempts to obtain a gun from known suppliers in the area indicated that the defendants were coordinating their efforts to lure the victim to a particular location where they were lurking were lying, and then opened fire. at him when he arrived with two different weapons.

Cooper and Bennett’s presence at the scene immediately afterwards and their attempts to enter – reportedly so they could help identify the body – were no coincidence, as they realized they had dropped the phone containing their DNA, fingerprints and report of their activities that night, Krouse says. said. He noted that the defendants, who had contacted Montgomery at least a dozen times that evening, suddenly stopped calling after he was dead.

Attorney William Wismer, who represented Cooper, had argued that there was no way to tell when his client’s fingerprint ended up on the phone and that there was no evidence that Cooper ever tried to get a gun that night. He added that there was no motive for Cooper to have killed Montgomery and that there was no testimony that a weapon was actually delivered.

Bill Davis, who represented Bennett, also argued that other than the DNA found on the phone, there was no direct evidence of any kind in the case linking his client to Montgomery’s murder. He argued that if Bennett and Cooper wanted to retrieve that phone from the crime scene, they could easily have used an alley to do so, but they didn’t.

Davis added that there was no testimony that Montgomery was actually hit by a 9mm bullet, so the casing may not have been properly connected, meaning there was only one shooter. There was also no evidence that Bennett actually got a gun that night, Davis said.

Montes’ attorney, Stephen Ciarrocchi, noted in his closing that he didn’t even interview most of the 16 Commonwealth witnesses in the case because the evidence against his client was so “paper-thin” that all Montes linked to the shooting bond, his Instagram was. An account was found on the phone.

Ciarrocchi noted that the account had been logged into that phone since May 2021 and there was no way to know who was using it that night.

He said Bennett left two voice messages for the man he was trying to get a gun from at 1:27 a.m. and 1:29 a.m., both of which were played for the jury, and that the Instagram account sent a message between the two. two calls. At another point earlier in the evening, Ciarrocchi said testimony showed Montes was not present on a video call seconds before his account sent a message.

Montes faces charges of receiving stolen property and loitering in another case, which will be heard before Pileggi on Nov. 4.

Sentencing for the other two men is scheduled for Jan. 17, pending psychological, psychiatric and substance abuse evaluations.