Attorney Frank Cassese, left, looks through photos in the aggravated murder trial of Larenz Rhodes, right. The photo was taken prior to closing arguments in the case Monday in Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. Staff photo / Ed Runyan

YOUNGSTOWN — After hearing from prosecution witnesses for four days in the aggravated murder trial of Larenz Rhodes, jurors heard a rebuttal Monday from defense attorney Frank Cassese.

Cassese did not present any defense witnesses, but he presented an alternative theory during closing arguments as to who drove a car Jan. 24, 2019, to the apartment of Crystal Hernandez and fired 25 shots with an AK-47 assault rifle into her home.

Police found her dead when they arrived. Her son, 2, was asleep but unharmed on her chest.

The jury later deliberated three hours before going home for the night. Deliberations resume at 9 a.m. today.

Rhodes, 20, is one of several young men accused of killing Hernandez by shooting into her McBride Street apartment at the end of a daylong feud involving her boyfriend, Gabriel Smith, 20. Testimony at the trial indicated that the defendants went there to shoot Smith, but only Hernandez and their son were there.

Three co-defendants who pleaded guilty earlier testified in the trial. Three others still await trial.

Cassese suggested in his remarks that one of the co-defendants who testified — Martize Daniels, 20 — was the driver and shooter, not Rhodes. And Cassese said the witnesses who said otherwise are “biased” and not believable because of the plea deals they got.

Cassese pointed out that Daniels was indicted on aggravated murder in Hernandez’ death and remained charged that way for almost a year. He was allowed to plead guilty this January to one charge — felonious assault against Smith early Jan. 24, 2019.

Daniels and others testified that Daniels was hit in the leg with shotgun pellets early Jan. 24, went to the hospital that afternoon and stayed home later that night when six of his friends went to McBride Street to take revenge against Smith.

But Cassese showed jurors two surveillance photos — one showing a multicolored jacket Rhodes wore during a confrontation at the Speed Check gas station on McGuffey Road at about 1:30 a.m. Jan. 24, 2019, and one showing a black jacket on a man leaving Hernandez’s killing.

Witnesses said Rhodes was the man in both photos, but Cassese stated that “no witness at any point ever testified that Larenz Rhodes ever changed his clothes.” Then he showed photos of other men accused of firing into the home. None of them changed their clothes betweeen the first incident and the murder, he said.

In addition to Daniels, co-defendants Joquaun Blair, 23, and Burton McGee, 21, testified, implicating Rhodes as a shooter.

In reply to Cassese’s allegations, assistant prosecutor Robert Andrews said jurors should focus on the evidence actually presented during the trial and not listen to “these wild ideas the defense throws out.”

Andrews said a Bureau of Criminal Identification scientist testified that Rhodes was the “major contributor” of DNA found on the steering wheel and driver’s side door of a dark Kia seen on surveillance video near Hernandez’s apartment.

The DNA expert stated that when multiple people have driven a car, the DNA that comes up is generally that of the person who drove it last, Andrews said. The car was recovered the next day not far from Hernandez’s apartment.

WHO CARES?

As for the photo of the man identified by witnesses as Rhodes wearing different clothes: “Who cares what he was wearing?” Andrews said.

The first photo was taken at around 1:30 a.m. Rhodes told a Youngstown police detective he had gone to the South Side in the evening Jan. 24, 2019. He could have changed clothing there, Andrews said.

Cassese said Rhodes has only a seventh-grade education, cannot read, is homeless and “didn’t have a mom and dad to raise him.” Cassese said these things made him vulnerable to being the “patsy” who took the fall for someone else.

Assistant Prosecutor Kevin Trapp told jurors in his closing arguments that some of the best evidence of Rhodes’ guilt was the testimony of Blair, who admitted to being one of the six who went to Hernandez’s apartment and fired into it.

“He didn’t try to minimize anything,” Trapp said of Blair, “including his own” role in shooting into the house. “He admitted, ‘I shot the second bigget gun,’ the .45, multiple times,” Trapp said.

Blair identified Rhodes as the driver of the car that brought Blair and Johntez Scrivens, 21, to Hernandez’s apartment, Trapp said. Blair would know that Rhodes was among the six because Blair “sat right next to him” in the car. Blair’s DNA was found on the front passenger seat, Trapp said, adding that Blair was wearing a large Nike swoosh on his jacket as he sat in the front passenger seat. The shooting took place in the Victory Estates apartments on the East Side.

Trapp said DNA evidence indicated that an AK-47 was the weapon that killed Hernandez. Andrews said during closing arguments that a BCI scientist testified that an AK-47 “potentially could be the weapon that killed Crystal Hernandez.”

erunyan@tribtoday.com