Trial in deputy’s murder near end
It took 17 hours for cops to track the three men they think gunned down Broward Sheriff’s Deputy Brian Tephford in November 2006.
Putting the men’s fate in the hands of a jury has taken much longer.
But more than 11 years after the fatal ambush that claimed Tephford’s life, and almost nine months after opening statements in the trial, a jury will soon be asked whether the three men are guilty as charged or unjustly accused.
The stakes are high for Bernard Forbes, 33; Andre Delancy, 31; and Eloyn Ingraham, who turns 40 on
Sunday. Each faces the death penalty if convicted of first-degree murder in Tephford’s death. And they have not presented a united front. Lawyers for the men wrapped up their cases at the end of January, each arguing their client is innocent, without vouching for the other two.
The defendants are also charged with attempted murder in the wounding of Deputy Corey Carbocci, who lived to testify about what he saw late on Nov. 12, 2006 at the Versailles Gardens development in Tamarac.
State Attorney Mike Satz, who is handling the prosecution personally with the assistance of his chief deputy, Jeff Marcus, told the jury that Ingraham was a passenger in a Toyota that Tephford pulled over because of a discrepancy with the vehicle’s license tag.
The driver was Ingraham’s girlfriend at the time. As Tephford questioned her, Carbocci arrived and talked to Ingraham, who gave the deputy a fake name, according to testimony.
Satz introduced evidence showing that Ingraham had called Forbes and Delancy, who were nearby. No one has been able to testify about any conversation that took place, but within minutes, the deputies were under attack.
According to a scene reconstruction expert called by the prosecution, two gunmen fired at Tephford and Carbocci. Tephford was dead at the scene. Carbocci managed to get to safety as the gunmen fled.
Another witness, Roger Del Prado, testified that he gave the three defendants a ride away from the neighborhood. He told jurors he abandoned his own car, jumping out the driver’s side door, when he saw Ingraham preparing a gun as if to shoot at pursuing officers.
“I just looked back, saw [Ingraham] jump in the driver’s seat and take off, “said Del Prado.
Ingraham, Forbes and Delancy were arrested Nov. 17, 2006 at the Rodeway Inn & Suites, 2440 W. State Road 84. Detectives found weapons that matched the two they think were used in the shooting. Forbes’ DNA was on one of the guns, according to prosecution witnesses.
H. Dohn Williams, Delancy’s lawyer, and Daniel Aaronson, Ingraham’s lawyer, each have portrayed Forbes as the shooter.
Williams called a single witness — a man who said he saw someone matching Delancy’s description at the other end of the Versailles Gardens complex seconds after the shooting began.
Aaronson said there was no indication that Ingraham spoke to anyone while his phone line was open — neither Carbocci nor the Toyota’s driver, Shante Spencer, heard the conversation Ingraham had.
Satz portrayed the call as an order from Ingraham to his friends to help him to intervene in the traffic stop, but defense lawyers say none of the three men had any reason to want deputies dead. Hilliard Moldof, Forbes’ lawyer, called the premise “absurd” in his opening statement in June.
In presenting Forbes’ defense, Moldof attacked the integrity of the the DNA evidence tying Forbes to the shooting. He also presented his own expert who relied more heavily on Carbocci’s testimony to determine that there was one shooter, not two.
One reason the case took so long to come to trial was the discovery after the men were apprehended that two of them, Ingraham and Forbes, may have participated in a Tamarac clothing store robbery a few weeks before the Tephford shooting. Prosecutors opted to try that case first. Had Ingraham and Forbes been convicted, the crime could have been used as evidence they deserve the death penalty for killing Tephford.
Concern over capture for the robbery could also have helped explain why Ingraham might have been worried about the traffic stop and why he gave Carbocci a fake name.
But the jury found Ingraham and Forbes not guilty, and the jury in the Tephford case has not been told about the allegations or the effect, if any, on how the ambush played out.
Another delay was prompted in early 2016 when the U.S. Supreme Court struck down Florida’s death penalty procedure. A new law was passed, only to be struck down by the state Supreme Court just as jury selection was about to begin.
Jury selection proceeded in the fall of 2016, with the judge and lawyers anticipating a new death penalty law in place by the time a jury was picked. More than 2,000 potential jurors were interviewed, and it wasn’t until spring 2017 that a panel was seated.
By then, as expected, the state legislature had restored the death penalty.
Opening statements began June 6. And although testimony wrapped up at the end of January, scheduling conflicts between the lawyers and the judge pushed the schedule for closing arguments to Feb. 27.
Closings will last a week, with each lawyer getting a full day to make his case. Prosecutors will get two — one to make their argument, and a second, after each defense lawyer has had a turn, to offer a rebuttal.
Deliberations are likely to begin toward the end of the second week of March. The jury will be sequestered for deliberations.