Jury ready to deliberate Steelers player stabbing

Was it theft or a drunken brawl?

Through an animated 50-minute closing argument, defense attorney Fred Rabner accused Steelers offensive lineman Mike Adams of lying and the head of team security of helping him concoct his story.

He told the jury of seven men and five women hearing the criminal case against his client, Dquay Means, as well as Michael Paranay and Jerrell Whitlock that Mr. Adams’ story about a stabbing during the early morning hours of June 1 on the South Side changed after he spoke with Jack Kearney, who is an Allegheny County sheriff’s lieutenant and head of security for the Steelers.

The trial for the three men, accused of participating in a conspiracy to steal Mr. Adams’ truck and stab him, began April 22. The jury is expected to begin deliberating today.

Although all three were initially charged with attempted homicide, Common Pleas Judge Anthony M. Mariani on Tuesday granted a motion by Mr. Paranay’s attorney, Randall McKinney, to dismiss that count against him. He is still charged with aggravated assault and conspiracy to rob.

During Mr. Rabner’s closing, he told the jury that Mr. Adams’ account of the events that morning changed three times.

Mr. Adams told the initial officers responding to 17th and East Carson streets simply that he’d been punched in the face and stabbed.

But later, when he spoke with detectives at the hospital, Mr. Adams reported that he was threatened with a gun in his face and heard his attackers say they would kill him in front of the crowd leaving the bars on the South Side that night.

“What happened between Story No. 1 and Story No. 2?” Mr. Rabner asked the jury. “Steelers security goes to the hospital. Steelers security meets with Mike Adams, and lo and behold, let’s go to Story No. 2.

“It’s not a drunken melee anymore. Now it’s a drunken robbery.

“Someone is lying, ladies and gentlemen. “Who has something to lose?” Mr. Rabner told the jury that the 6-foot-7-inch, 330-pound man was already on thin ice with the team for previous issues of drug or alcohol use in college.

Being involved in a drunken fight that led to being stabbed, Mr. Rabner said, could have doomed him.

“Not only would Mike Adams be off the Steelers, but Mike Adams would probably be out of the NFL,” the attorney said.

He noted that Mr. Adams told the first officer on the scene “‘I’m a Pittsburgh Steeler.’

“What’s the meaning of that?” Mr. Rabner continued. “The point is, ‘I’m in trouble here. I’m a Pittsburgh Steeler. Protect me. Help me out.’

“There’s no other reason,” the lawyer said.

During the prosecution’s case, Mr. Kearney testified that he spoke with Mr. Adams at the hospital a few hours after surgery to repair his stab wound and later went to Nakama Japanese Steakhouse to retrieve Mr. Adams’ car keys, which he said he left with the valet.

But there was conflicting testimony during the trial that Mr. Adams, whose blood alcohol level was 0.18, drove his truck and parked it on 17th Street a short time before the 3 a.m. stabbing.

On Monday, Pittsburgh homicide Detective Robert Shaw testified that he went to Nakama two days after the incident to review video surveillance footage from the area around the restaurant, but that he found no usable footage from the street where the stabbing occurred.

Mr. Kearney said Tuesday evening there was no cover-up.

“The defense attorneys had every opportunity to ask me any question they wanted under cross-examination,” Mr. Kearney said. “Rabner and McKinney didn’t ask me any.”

Assistant district attorney Christopher Stone said the case is about a “simple credibility decision.”

Mr. Stone reminded the jurors that two of the defendants — Mr. Means and Mr. Whitlock — fled to avoid talking to police about what happened, and that a key defense witness left the scene of the stabbing before officers arrived so she could avoid speaking to them, as well.

As for the victim’s story changing, Mr. Stone said it didn’t. All that changed were specific details — which were initially left out in the aftermath of the stabbing.

“This isn’t a case of a coverup,” Mr. Stone said. “That’s ridiculous.”

The prosecutor called Mr. Adams “forthright” in his testimony, and said “he gave calm, perfectly responsive answers.”

The defense has contended from the beginning that the entire incident began when Mr. Adams bumped into Mr. Paranay and a fight ensued.

Mr. McKinney, who represents Mr. Paranay, referred in his closing to testimony where witnesses referred to Mr. Adams as a “bully” and his client, who is about 5 feet 7 inches tall, as a “chihuahua.”

The idea of the three defendants choosing to rob such a large man of a Ford pickup truck after just ordering chicken, in a crowded area of the South Side, Mr. McKinney said, “makes absolutely no sense.”

Paula Reed Ward: pward@ post-gazette.com, 412-263-2620 or on Twitter @PaulaReedWard.