The attorney who represented the man known as Witness No. 1 in the Wilkinsburg mass shooting case said he never saw any police or prosecutorial misconduct in his client's dealings with the Allegheny County district attorney’s office and local law enforcement.
Chris Rand Eyster filed a response in the case on Tuesday, writing that he felt compelled to do so to protect his own reputation and standing within the legal community.
"A response to these false allegations is necessary to maintain the confidence the courts have placed in the undersigned," Mr. Eyster wrote. "One of the duties of a criminal defense attorney is to uphold the integrity of the criminal justice system. Here, the criminal justice system and some of its participants have been unfairly attacked."
Witness No. 1, whose name is Kendall Mikell and who has spoken publicly about his allegations, contacted the defense attorneys for Cheron Shelton, who was charged with killing five adults and an unborn child in Wilkinsburg on March 9, 2016, a few days after Shelton's trial began earlier this month.
Mikell contacted them, he said, because he believed he had been mistreated by prosecutors when they attempted to use him as a jailhouse witness in the case.
Mikell told defense attorney Randall McKinney that he received payments from detectives and that he had a meeting with one of the prosecutors on the Shelton case, Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini.
Mikell also alleged that he was purposely housed next to Shelton at the Allegheny County Jail to try to collect information from him and that he was instructed to lie.
A day after interviewing Mikell, Mr. McKinney filed a motion seeking to have the case against Shelton thrown out, alleging discovery violations by the prosecution for failing to disclose that Mikell had been paid as part of his participation in the case. Mr. McKinney also noted that Mikell's statements were used in the affidavit of probable cause that led to Shelton's arrest.
However, prosecutors never called Mikell to testify — either in the preliminary hearing or at trial.
In a response to Shelton’s motion, Deputy District Attorney Kevin Chernosky denied the allegations made by Mikell and called the filing "a desperate attempt on behalf of the defense to influence a jury that has not been sequestered during deliberations on this matter."
Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Edward J. Borkowski denied the defense motion.
However, in his filing on Tuesday, Mr. Eyster said he believed it necessary to respond to "certain false allegations” by Mikell about his representation of him.
Mr. Eyster explained that he had been originally appointed to represent Mikell in September 2014 in federal court for a gun and drug case, and then again in 2017 and 2018.
Mr. Eyster said he also was present for a meeting with Mikell with the prosecution in the Wilkinsburg case in July 2016.
At that meeting, Mr. Eyster said, he explained to Mikell his obligations if served with a subpoena.
But Mikell told Shelton's defense attorneys that, at that meeting, Ms. Pellegrini was trying to bully him into cooperating in the Wilkinsburg case and that Mr. Eyster urged him to cooperate.
“He was like, ‘you’re about to talk to the prosecutor. She’s the top dog. And she’s like, she’s a pit bull. So just be respectful and listen to what she got to say. She got a lot of power,’ ” Mikell told Shelton’s defense attorneys.
But in his response, Mr. Eyster denied saying anything like that.
"This is a false statement by Witness 1," Mr. Eyster wrote. "The undersigned never said anything like that to Witness 1. Moreover, the undersigned does not talk like that."
Mr. Eyster went on to say that at the meeting, Mikell "exploded in anger and started cursing" at Ms. Pellegrini.
She left the room and did not return, Mr. Eyster wrote. Mikell calmed down, and later Mr. Eyster was told that Mikell would not be called as a witness at the Wilkinsburg preliminary hearing.
Mr. Eyster went on in his response that he never witnessed or was made aware of any prosecutorial misconduct in the case, and that if he had been, he would have reported it as part of his duties under the Rules of Professional Conduct.
Mr. Eyster also said he never witnessed any police misconduct.
"In fact, the detectives were conscientious in making sure that Witness 1 was protected in his role as a witness," he wrote. "Whenever Witness 1 or the undersigned raised safety concerns, the detectives were responsive and took appropriate action."
Paula Reed Ward: pward@post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter: @PaulaReedWard.
First Published: February 18, 2020, 9:37 p.m.
