Warner takes stand against Cantu

ONEIDA, N.Y. » Jordan Warner said he lied to police about events leading up to the death of Francis Borasky because he wanted to protect his cousin Isaac Cantu.

“I left out a lot of things in my statement” to police said Warner, 17, as he testified on the fourth day of Cantu’s murder trial in Madison County Court on Monday. Warner, whowas 16 on Sept. 18, 2016, the day Borasky was stabbed to death, took a plea deal

earlier this year in exchange for a reduced sentence and the promise to testify truthfully in court.

Cantu is on trial for second-degree murder, firstdegree manslaughter, firstdegree assault, and fourthdegree criminal possession of a weapon in Borasky’s death.

On the night of the murder, Warner said he was at a party with Cantu. They were both drunk as they walked home down Stoddard Street toward Cantu’s 227 Lexington Ave. home that night around 8 p.m. While walking, Warner said he used Borasky’s driveway basketball hoop to dunk a bottle of vodka, which led to a fight between himself and Borasky. He said they hit each other in the head until Borasky went down and Cantu joined in “more in like a breaking up manner,” Warner said.

After that, he remembers running to Cantu’s house. After getting inside, Warner said he heard glass breaking, followed by his Aunt Zippy and her boyfriend going outside. He followed them out and was punched in the face by Borasky, he said. They got into another fist fight, again aiming for each other’s heads.

Defense attorney Michael Vavonese asked how Warner knew he was only hitting Borasky’s head when Warner had previously stated he had his head down during the fight.

“You didn’t say a word about only punching him in the head,” he said. “You could have hit him in the chest when your head was down, when you were flailing.”

Sitting on the witness stand, Warner ducked his head and mimicked punching upwards. “It’s not that hard,” he said.

Warner said he never saw Cantu hit or stab Borasky. He said they both went to where Warner’s aunt was arguing with another woman. Warner said he did recall Cantu holding something at his side. He could not identify what might have been in Cantu’s hands.

It was one of several details he did not provide police during his initial statement, Warner admitted. He did not tell police that while they were upstairs in Cantu’s room after the fight outside, that he asked Cantu what happened and was told “I stabbed that man.” He did not tell police that after he learned Borasky had been stabbed, he and Cantu ran to friend Casey Naylor’s house near Willard Prior Elementary, where he text messaged his girlfriend Alicia Eberly using Autumn Naylor’s phone. He also never told police about his father Jacob disposing of his and Cantu’s clothes the night of the murder.

“I left out a lot of things,” Warner said about his police statements.

About the text messages specifically, he said he “didn’t see the relevance” in telling police about them. When asked why he didn’t tell them about his clothes being destroyed, he said “why would I throw my dad under the bus?”

During his text conversation with Eberly, Vavonese pointed out times when Warner said hewas in trouble, with Eberly noting that “they don’t have evidence” and police would need proof if he did anything. In response, Vavonese points to a reply that reads “IDK,” followed by “I have to go.” Warner contested that the “IDK” reply was Autumn Naylor and not him.

“You’re trying to put Autumn’s words in my mouth,”

Warner said.

Vavonese also took issue with Warner’s statements to police after he turned himself in on Sept. 19, 2016. During that recorded state- ment, most of which Warner said he did not recall, Vavonese pointed out that Warner told police he was worried about going to jail.

“Why would you go to jail if you only punched [Borasky]?” Vavonese asked.

“I was scared,” Warner said. “I was 16 years old and told a man was dead. I just fought a man who’s dead.”

Warner said he didn’t trust police to treat him fairly if he gave a true statement either, since he was still charged for murder.

“Even though I didn’t stab a man, I was still charged with murder,” Warner said.

It was that murder charges Jordan’s father Jacob tried saving him from when he destroyed Cantu’s and his son’s clothes, the elder Warner said Monday on the stand.

“There wasn’t anything and there isn’t anything I would not do for my son,” he said.

Jacob Warner recounted the evening of Sept. 18 after picking his son and Cantu up from the Naylors’ residence. He said on the way back to his Main Street home, he overheard Isaac say he’d killed someone. At the time, Jacob Warner knew scant details about the fight with Borasky and doubted anyone was dead.

When they arrived at his home, Jacob Warner took the boys up to Jordan’s room, where he told them to remove everything except their underwear. He bagged up the clothes and disposed of them days later, he said. After learning details about what had happened from the boys, Jacob Warner said he then went to 227 Lexington Ave. to look for the knife, with the intent of disposing of it. When he arrived, the area was cordoned off and police were nearby.

“I just couldn’t get to it,” Jacob Warner said. “There was no way I could retrieve it.”

Jacob Warner said his initial actions that night were to help both boys, but that in the end he helped strike a plea deal for his son.

“You didn’t come in here out of your civic duty,” Vavonese said. “You came in here to protect your son from murder charges.”

Jacob Warner agreed, going so far as to say hewould lie under oath to protect Jordan.

The jury also heard from Cassy Mills, Borasky’s longtime girlfriend and mother of his two children. She recounted the evening of Sept. 18 and the fight Borasky had with the younger Warner and Cantu outside their Stoddard Street home. She was the one who carried a baseball bat to Cantu’s house and broke the porch door window, she said, and subsequently got into a fight with Cantu’s mother.

“I was angry that they hurt [Borasky],” she said.

After breaking the door window, she said she got into a struggle with Cantu’s mother over the base- ball bat, and did not see the fight between Borasky, Warner and Cantu. At one point, she said Cantu came over and told her to get away from his mother or he’d punch her in the face. “I’ll knock you out, I’ll cut you,” she said Cantu told her.

When asked about previous statements she’d made to police that suggested both Warner and Cantu spoke to her, Mills was adamant that only Cantu yelled at her.

Shortly after that exchange, Mills said police arrived and told her and Cantu’s mother to drop the weapon, at which point she let the bat go. That’s when she saw Borasky lying on the ground.

Mills said she ran over to Borasky, thinking he was just unconscious, but then saw blood pooling around him. She said she also saw stab wounds on his torso when his shirt was lifted. “I just freaked out,” she said. “I started screaming ‘they stabbed him, why did you stab him’?”

While she maintained her composure during testimony, Mills broke down recounting Borasky’s wounds, crying when shown a picture of Borasky’s body in the hospital.

She said EMTs arrived to take Borasky to the hospital after she’d left the scene to take her son home. He had followed them to the scene.

“He saw his dad laying there, and I couldn’t let him see that,” she said. “I had to get him out of there.”

Cantu’s trial will continue Tuesday at 9:30 a.m.