Witnesses in the state trial of a defendant accused of killing one man and injuring two others say former Delaware death row inmate Isaiah McCoy was involved in a 2017 shooting outside Club Alley Cat in Waikiki.
Jordan Smith is on trial for murder and two counts of attempted murder, using a firearm to commit those crimes and carrying a firearm without a permit. Smith, 19, has been in custody in lieu of
$1 million bail since his arrest in September 2017.
Richard Grimes testified that he was involved in McCoy’s prostitution operation as McCoy’s driver. He said he picked up McCoy and Smith at the Hawaiian Ebbtide Hotel in the early morning of Sept. 16, 2017, about four hours before the shooting. He said Smith had an assault rifle and McCoy had a shotgun.
Grimes said he drove McCoy and Smith around Waikiki looking for a person Smith had a confrontation with the night before.
Deputy Prosecutor Chris Van Marter showed the jurors security video of Smith fighting with another man in Moose McGillycuddy’s.
Grimes said at one point he stopped on Seaside Avenue and Smith got out. When he returned McCoy asked Smith, “Is he there?” Smith answered “Yeah,” and left with the assault rifle. Grimes said about 30 seconds later he heard gunshots.
He said he was “Terrified, because I didn’t know that was going to happen.”
When Smith returned Grimes said McCoy asked Smith, “Did you get him?” He said Smith replied, “Yeah.”
Grimes said after the shooting, he dropped off McCoy and Smith at a Launiu Street apartment where one of McCoy’s brothers lives.
Tony Thomas testified that he too was involved in McCoy’s prostitution operation and that he picked up Smith and Smith’s brother at the airport about a week before the shooting. He said Smith arrived from Delaware and agreed to enforce McCoy’s “blade” or territory by keeping out rival pimps collecting fees from independent prostitutes.
He said he was in Waikiki looking for Smith’s brother when he heard the gunshots. He said he went to the Launiu apartment where McCoy told him he had cleaned the assault rifle with bleach.
Thomas said he left the apartment and went to the Ebbtide where he called police and arranged to turn over the rifle. He said he did that because, “I knew that someone lost their life for nothing.”
Circuit Judge Todd Eddins instructed the jurors to disregard what Thomas said McCoy told him. McCoy is not on trial and does not have the opportunity to dispute comments attributed to him.
Thomas said he also arranged to have Grimes arrested because he didn’t want anything to happen to Grimes. He said, “I was asked to harm Rich.”
Smith’s lawyer Steven Nichols told the jurors in the trial’s opening statements that Thomas was trying to get rid of McCoy to take over the prostitution operation.
This is Smith’s second trial on second-degree murder, attempted murder and firearm charges. His first trial ended last September with the jurors finding him not guilty of attempted first-degree murder but deadlocked on the other charges.
Grimes and Thomas did not testify in the first trial, and Grimes did not tell police that McCoy was involved in the shooting. Grimes testified only after Eddins told him he has been granted immunity and that if he refused he could be prosecuted for contempt.
Federal prosecutors secured sex trafficking charges against McCoy after he was not named in the Smith murder and attempted murder state indictment. They were forced to drop their case against McCoy last November after discovering that the case agent withheld evidence and lied.
McCoy was on death row in Delaware after a state jury there found him guilty in 2012 of a drug-related murder. His conviction was later overturned and he was set free in January 2017 after he was found not guilty in the retrial. He could not be reached for comment.
