Jury deliberations underway

ONEIDA, N.Y. » No verdict has yet been reached in the attempted murder trial of Michael Stevens.

“I know a trial takes a lot out of you,” Assistant District Attorney Robert Mascari said to the court. “Mr. Raspante and I, we do this for a living. It takes a lot out of us.”

After almost a week of testimony, Mascari and defense attorney John Raspante spent roughly an hour Monday morning delivering their closing arguments to the jury and Judge Patrick O’Sullivan. Each painted a different picture of what led to a violent domestic dispute the night of July 14 and into the morning of July 15, 2016 between Stevens and his ex-girlfriend Erin Chesebro at his North Lake Street home, during which Chesebro was allegedly stabbed 14 times.

Mascari contended that had the stab wound in Chesebro’s neck been only a fraction of an inch off, “this would be a murder trial.”

“Things are not always as they seem,” said defense attorney John Raspante. He said Chesebro was the aggressor that. “She got the knife and she had the knife from start to finish.”

Raspante characterized Chese- bro has not having a “good relationship” with the truth, and said she attacked Stevens “in a fit of rage, high on drugs and alcohol,” forcing him to defend himself.

While both Stevens and Chesebro testified they grabbed the knife blade to protect themselves, “Erin has a wound 100 percent consistent with grabbing the knife,” Mascari said. “The defendant doesn’t.”

Raspante also called into question testimony by William Kaulback, an inmate at Madison-County Jail who agreed to be an informant for police. While they were both behind bars, Kaulback says Stevens asked him to request a family member kill Chesebro and David Scribner, who had dated Chesebro. Raspante said Kaulback was a pred- ator who knew how to work the system and concocted a plan to make Stevens look guilty for Kaulback’s own benefit. “He’ll be back in the system any day now,” Raspante said of Kaulback.

As for Stevens, Raspante said anything the defendant said to Kaulback was just “smack,” and that Stevens never actually planned to go through with a hit on Chesebro and Scribner. Raspante said Stevens only wanted to antagonize the two of them so they wouldn’t testify.

Mascari said Stevens wanted Chesebro and Scribner dead, going so far as to set a price, arrange payment and decide on the method: a “hot shot,” or lethal dose of drugs. “Character is what you do when nobody’s looking,” Mascari said, playing a segment of recorded conversation between Kaulback and Stevens, when Kaulback asked the defendant what would happen to Stevens’ and Chesebro’s four children if she died. Stevens said his mother would take care of them.

“That’s the magic word folks,” Mascari said. “Does that sound like antagonizing?”

Mascari then replayed another segment of the conversation between Kaulback and Stevens, during which Stevens laughed off concerns about not being able to “take this back” if Chesebro and Scribner were killed. During the conversation, Stevens said he’d do it himself were he not in jail.

“This is how he talked about the woman he ‘loved to pieces’,” Mascari told jurors. “This is howhe talked about the mother of his children.”

Over the course of half an hour, jurors were instructed in the matter of the charges facing the defendant and the definition of the charges by O’Sullivan. Jurors were instructed to not talk with anybody about the case or to read up on the law, the history of the case or anything relating to it.

Stevens is facing a num- ber of charges, including second- degree attempted murder, a class B felony; first- degree assault, a class B felony; second-degree assault, a class D felony; third-degree robbery, a class D felony; third-degree criminal possession of a weapon, a class D felony; second-degree criminal solicitation, a class D felony; three counts of endangering the welfare of a child, a class A misdemeanor; obstruction of breathing, a class A misdemeanor; and second-degree harassment.

Michael Stevens