Potts tells judge iPhone not his
Lawyers for Reginald Potts found an iPhone tucked in among papers the convicted killer handed to them in the courtroom this week, the latest twist in Potts’ marathon sentencing hearing on the murder of girlfriend Nailah Franklin.
Potts’ lawyers apparently alerted Cook County Judge Thomas Gainer when court began Thursday that the phone was among papers that Potts returned to them before leaving court Wednesday night. Questioned by the judge, Potts said the phone wasn’t his.
As criminal behavior goes, smuggling a phone into the jail was a relatively minor offense among the long list of bad acts prosecutors have laid out during four days of testimony at Potts’ sentencing hearing. Problems with his attorneys aren’t unusual for Potts either. The 39-year-old has burned through several lawyers and has occasionally represented himself in the years between his arrest and his trial in November. This week, prosecutors said Potts attacked prominent defense attorney Sam Adam Jr. when Adam represented Potts in a criminal case in the 1990s.
Potts was found guilty of murdering Franklin after the 28-year-old woman broke up with him in 2007, then dumping her body in a secluded area behind his brother-in-law’s Calumet City video store.
Later Thursday, Franklin’s sisters and mother testified about the pain of losing the bubbly Oprah fanatic, fashionista and “glue” of their tight-knit clan.
“Our family is poorer for her absence,” Lehia Franklin-Acox said of her sister.
Reginald Potts’ namesake father also took the stand Thursday, asking the judge for leniency.
The younger Potts’ sentencing hearing will resume on Friday.