Murder-trial witness surprises prosecutors

Says he led robbery, not defendant

A key witness in the capital-murder trial of Calvin Thornton Jr. reversed course Wednesday, saying he was the aggressor in the fatal robbery of a 68-year-old Little Rock man, not Thornton.

For the past two years, Malcolm Jamel Cooksey has told authorities that Thornton led the July 2015 robbery that left Fred William Pohnka dead in a pool of his own blood in the kitchen of his Jackson Street home.

But Wednesday, before a Pulaski County jury, Cooksey testified that he, not Thornton, was the one who carried a gun during the robbery; that he, not Thornton, was the one who forced his way into Pohnka’s home; and that he, not Thornton, knocked Pohnka to the floor.

Prosecutors had not heard that version of events before, senior deputy prosecutor Melanie Martin said while she questioned Cooksey about why he changed his story.

Cooksey told her he’d been lying before. He testified that what he’d told police previously were lies to try and get out of trouble with the law by blaming Thornton.

Accepting a 50-year sentence for his role in Pohnka’s death led him to renew his Christian faith during his 20

months in jail, Cooksey said. That faith now compels him to tell the truth about what happened, he said.

“That’s when I was playing the blame game … trying to get off my charge,” Cooksey said. “Now … I’ve gotten right with God, and I want to tell the truth.”

Martin questioned Cooksey’s sincerity, pointing out that it only seemed to have come over him once he got on the witness stand, and not in any of their pre-trial meetings, including the one before Wednesday’s proceedings.

“You’ve decided to get your life right?” she said. “What, in the last 10 minutes?”

Cooksey insisted he was now telling the truth, saying Thornton had gone into the home with him but had been surprised by his plan to rob Pohnka.

Questioned by the prosecutor about who had inflicted the bone-breaking injuries on the victim, Cooksey would not say that he had harmed Pohnka, just that he was responsible.

“I really felt bad about the whole situation. I had no intentions for Mr. Pohnka to get hurt,” he said.

Cooksey’s 50 minutes on the witness stand could open him up to a life sentence, the same sentence prosecutors are seeking for Thornton.

Cooksey was testifying against Thornton under an arrangement with prosecutors that got him his 50-year sentence for first-degree murder and aggravated robbery.

It’s a prison term that would keep Cooksey, 25, behind bars until he was at least 54. But that sentence was conditioned on him telling the truth about how Pohnka was set up for the robbery that ended with him dead.

If prosecutors decide Cooksey hasn’t been truthful, they can move to have the capital murder charge against him reinstated and seek to have him sent to prison for life.

Asked whether he’d been coerced into changing his story, either because of threats against him or out of fear of being labeled a “snitch” by fellow inmates, Cooksey denied he’d been threatened.

He did say that he was concerned about getting labeled as an informant, telling jurors that he’s heard that snitches are despised by many other inmates and can be subjected to random attacks in prison.

“It’s not good to be a snitch,” he said. “Nobody told me to say anything.”

Jail inmate Jamarcus Hughes, testifying for prosecutors, told jurors that prisoners suspected of cooperating with authorities are in danger from fellow inmates. He said he wouldn’t have gotten involved but then found out more about the victim and heard that Thornton intended to frame someone else for the killing.

“I wasn’t going to say anything until I learned it was an old man, and that he [Thornton] was going to put it off on someone else, ” he said.

Hughes, 24, testified that he was attacked in the county jail earlier this week by inmates who’d learned somehow that he was going to testify against Thornton.

Rather than identify his attackers to law enforcement, Hughes said that he asked to be placed in special confinement, “the hole,” for his own safety and that he plans to stay there for some time.

“I can’t be in population,” he told jurors.

Hughes also complained that a supporter of Thornton’s, a man who was watching the trial, had approached him in his courthouse cell where he was being held Wednesday before testifying. When he pointed out the man in the audience to jurors, the man waved back then left the courtroom a little while later.

Hughes said the man had questioned him about what he was going to tell jurors, and that while the man wasn’t overtly hostile, he considered the encounter in a lockeddown area of the courthouse to be threatening. His lawyer, John Kennedy, testified that he alerted bailiffs when he saw the man talking to Hughes.

Hughes, awaiting trial on rape and shooting charges, told jurors that Thornton had confided in him while they were in jail together that he had beaten a man to death during a robbery.

Hughes clashed with defense attorney Willard Proctor, who accused him of lying, either to try to get prosecutors to give him some leniency on his charges or to try to get some notoriety.

Prosecutors ended the day’s proceedings with the testimony of Dr. Charles Kokes, the state medical examiner, who performed the autopsy on Pohnka.

Kokes told jurors the 68-year-old father of two was killed by someone who clubbed him over the head at least 13 times with a blunt object, with each blow strong enough to rip the skin and fracture bone.

Pohnka was hit so hard it bruised his brain, and some of the wounds indicated that he could have been lying on the floor during some of the beating, Kokes said. The victim’s last minutes before he passed out were agonizing, and it could have taken him up to 45 minutes to die, the forensic pathologist testified.

Proceedings resume at 9 a.m. today.