KINGSTON, N.Y. — Witnesses for the prosecution spent Thursday afternoon identifying photos they said depicted shell casings, pools of blood, vehicles believed used in the commission of the crime and the area surrounding the place where Ashley Stephan Dixon was gunned down last year.
Assistant District Attorney Gerard Van Loan called six witnesses to the stand, five of them police officers with the Kingston Police Department and state police.
Corey Q. Smith, 36, is on trial for second-degree murder for Dixon’s death. Dixon was shot three times at around 7:20 p.m. near the 46 Sheehan Court apartment complex. He was pronounced dead a short time later at HealthAlliance of the Hudson Valley’s Broadway campus.
In opening statements, Van Loan said telephone records and witnesses will show more than six telephone calls between Smith and Dixon on the day of the shooting and that the last one ended in a heated argument just 30 minutes before Dixon was gunned down. He told jurors they will hear from Dixon’s girlfriend, Janai Lawrence, who drove Smith to meet Dixon and watched from only a few feet away as Smith fired on Dixon.
He said on an audio feed from the surveillance camera of a nearby business they will hear three gunshots and hear Lawrence yell “Corey, NO,” as Smith fired his .40 caliber semi-automatic handgun at Dixon, striking him in the neck, chest and arm. And, he said, jurors will see photographs of the same Dodge Durango Smith was driving when he was arrested in New York City parked in the parking lot of the complex at the time of the shooting. That vehicle, Van Loan said, was registered to Smith.
Smith, who prosecutors contend is a member of the G-Shine subset of the Bloods street gang was arrested in New York City on Feb. 12 on a parole violation stemming from a 2008 federal drug and weapons conviction.
He is charged with gunning down Dixon, who authorities claim is a member of the Sex, Money, Murder subset of the Bloods, because, according to Van Loan, Dixon had become “a liability” to the gang.
Van Loan said jurors will not see the weapon used to shoot Dixon. He said Smith discarded that gun in the 24 hours between the shooting and his arrest.
Defense Attorney William T. Martin has previously rejected the prosecution’s claim that his client is a gang member. In an opening statement that lasted only minutes, he urged jurors to listen carefully to the people’s case against his client. “I come from a part of the country where we say ‘put up or shut up,'” the New York City attorney said. He urged jurors to make sure the prosecution “put up.”
The trial got underway in Ulster County Court late Thursday morning after a contentious hearing before Judge Bryan Rounds when Martin accused the prosecution of withholding evidence, planting assistant district attorneys in the courthouse viewing room to spy on family members watching the proceedings and directing police to follow and intimidate Smith’s family members. At one point, Martin accused prosecutors of having FBI agents placed atop buildings with binoculars.
Van Loan conceded that although he had previously agreed to provide Martin with a list of witnesses to be called to the stand Thursday, he went back on his word. But, he said, he did so only did so after hearing the “baseless” and “unfounded” claims Martin was making about the prosecution.
“If he is not going to extend courtesy to us during these proceedings, we are certainly not going to be extending any courtesy to him,” Van Loan said.
Among those taking the stand during the first day of testimony was Warren Brown, a resident of the Styvestant Charter apartments complex who said that at around 7:30 p.m. on Feb. 11, he heard shots and went to the window to see what was happening outside. Under cross-examination, Brown said he heard “four or five” shots fired.
Also testifying Thursday were the police officers and state troopers who responded to the shooting and who processed the crime scene. One of those witnesses, Kingston Police Officer Jeremy Arciello, said he was the first officer on the scene. When he arrived, he said, he saw Dixon, who Arciello said he knew as “Ash,” lying on the ground. He said he attempted to provide medical aid to Dixon while waiting for paramedics to arrive.
Under cross-examination, Martin attempted to call Arciello’s credibility into question by asking about a 2018 lawsuit that alleged that in 2015 Arciello and Kingston Police Officer Michael Mills used a stun gun on a black man more than a dozen times. Although no disciplinary action was taken against Arciello — who said on the witness stand he never used the stun gun on the accuser — the city settled the lawsuit for $112,000. Arciello said the settlement was reached because it was cheaper for the city to settle the suit than to fight it.
Testimony is the trial is scheduled to resume Friday at 9:30 a.m.
The Daily Freeman will live-tweet the proceedings.
