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Chase Dearman appears on FOX10 TV WALA

FOX10: Testimony: Mobile woman lured shooting victim into van to set up robbery

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MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A woman charged with helping to set up a robbery that led to a fatal shooting last year lured the victim from a Tillman’s Corner motel room, a police investigator testified Tuesday.

Detective Rory Graves, of the Mobile Police Department, said surveillance video from the motel on April 26 shows Dejean Washington getting into a van driven by Maranda Shardae Gamble. He testified that a passenger in the vehicle is not visible in the video but that investigators believe it was Jermi Anrichio Adams, who is accused of firing the fatal shots.

Mobile County District Judge George Zoghby ruled Tuesday that prosecutors had presented enough evidence for a grand jury to consider indictments against Adams, 28, for murder and Gamble, 21, for felony murder.

“There’s a couple different locations involved here,” Mobile County District Attorney Keith Blackwood said outside the courtroom.

The victim and the two defendants knew one another, but the precise nature of their relationship remains unclear. Graves testified that Gamble gave conflicting information to authorities but eventually said that she overheard a conversation between Adams and someone else talking about a robbery.

Graves testified that Gamble believed the three were going to go to New Orleans first and then would return to the Prichard area but that they ended up going directly to the Plateau community. At that point, Gamble told investigators, Adams pulled out a gun and that Washington tried to grab it. She also told investigators that Adams pointed the gun at her, according to the testimony.

Police responding to Center Street and Wood Alley that evening found the 34-year-old’s body on the ground with four gunshot wounds. Graves testified that investigators found nine 9mm shell casings but not the murder weapon.

Gamble’s attorney, Chase Dearman, pressed Graves during cross-examination about whether there is any evidence suggesting his client fired the gun.

“To my knowledge, no,” the detective acknowledged.

Police put out a Be-On-The-Lookout for a van driving by Gamble, and sheriff’s deputies in Georgia arrested her during a traffic stop early the next morning. She was not charged, however. Graves testified that investigators wanted to talk to her but that she was not at that time a suspect.

Charges did not come until after police arrested Adams this month and Gamble earlier this month.

“Maranda Gamble is charged with felony murder because we believe that evidence tends to show that she intended to participate in the robbery that then led to the death of the victim in this case,” Blackwood said.

But Dearman said after the hearing that Gamble was not part of any criminal plot.

“In that car ride, my client overheard something to do with a robbery,” he said. “And she didn’t know when or how it would ever take place. They go to a place. They get out of a car. The guy pulls a gun, starts shooting and both the victim and my clients start running. And that’s the simplest of it.”

Under felony murder law, a person can be convicted if prosecutors prove that he or she was committing a crime – in this case robbery – that led to the victim’s death.

Graves also testified that text messages from Gamble’s cell phone indicate that she was in on the robbery planning. But Dearman argued that it was Adams using her phone.

Dearman sought to dispute any suggestion that Gamble was fleeing when deputies on Georgia’s Coweta County pulled her over at about 3 a.m. He said that is where his client’s mother lives.

“She was simply going home,” he said.

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Original Article found here.
By Brendan Kirby
Published: Jan. 31, 2023 at 5:25 PM CST

Chase Dearman Criminal Defense AttorneyWALA

FOX10: Fentanyl from I-10 seizure was enough to kill 1.5 million people, Mobile County prosecutor says

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MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A pair of California men on Wednesday pleaded not guilty to drug trafficking and possession charges related to what authorities say was the largest fentanyl bust in Mobile County’s history.

Lener Daneski Jiron Solies, 27, of Norwalk, Calif., and Zeshan Malik Fayyaz, 26, of Hawthorne, Calif., appeared remotely via video hookup from Mobile County Metro Jail. Mobile County District Judge George Zoghby left in place bonds of $1.5 million each. The order requires those bonds to be paid in cash, a condition that the defendants’ lawyers said is tantamount to denying bail.

In a sign of how significant prosecutors consider the case, Mobile County Chief Assistant District Attorney Keith Blackwood personally handled the arraignment. He told Zoghby that the seized fentanyl bricks exceeded 3 kilograms, an amount he said could produce 1.5 million lethal doses.

“Fentanyl is presenting us with a complete paradigm shift,” Blackwood told the judge, later adding, “As bad as cocaine is, as bad as meth is, as bad as heroin is, fentanyl is a game-changer. People are dying from it every day.”

The arrest occurred on Oct. 8, hours after the Mobile County Sheriff’s Office announced an unrelated fentanyl bust at the Dreamland Skate Center in Tillman’s Corner.

According to authorities, Solies was driving a rental car when deputies pulled the vehicle over on Interstate 10 near the Dauphin Island Parkway exit for an expired tag. Blackwood said a drug-sniffing dog alerted to the presence of narcotics and that a subsequent searched turned up the fentanyl, along with 3 grams of cocaine.

Blackwood said Solies did not have a driver’s license. He said the defendants later told investigators that they were driving from the Los Angeles area to Pensacola.

Blackwood argued for maintaining the initial bonds set by Mobile County District Judge Spiro Cheriogotis. He said the defendants have no ties to Mobile County and face, based on the volume of fentanyl, a mandatory sentence of life in prison if convicted. He also reiterated how deadly the drug is.

“That’s why it is so dangerous,” he said. “That’s why every aspect of the criminal justice system must take fentanyl prosecutions seriously.”

Chase Dearman, an attorney for Solies, objected to Blackwood’s characterization of how many people the drugs would kill.

“There is no chart that I’m aware of that’s been accepted in a court of law that converts a certain weight of a certain substance to a number of deaths,” he said.

Dearman acknowledged that fentanyl is a dangerous drug but added, “All drugs are dangerous. All of them are.”

Dearman said that although his client is accused of transporting drugs, no one has alleged that he is a drug dealer.

“My client is not guilty,” he said outside the courtroom. “He’s not admitting to anything at this time. Period.”

Stewart Hanley, an attorney for Fayyaz, said his client is the son of immigrants with no criminal record and a consistent work history. He noted that the defendant’s parents were in court Wednesday and argued that a $75,000 bond with electronic monitoring and other conditions would be more appropriate.

“He’s a 26-year-old born and raised in the U.S. … This is a young man with no criminal history,” he said.

A woman identifying herself as the defendant’s sister said, “We would take full responsibility.”

Dearman told the judge that he intends to wait until after the preliminary hearing to revisit bond, but he said after the hearing that $250,000 would be fair. He noted that the current $1.5 million is equivalent to the maximum bond amount set by the Alabama Supreme Court in murder cases.

“My client didn’t murder anybody,” he said. “And at this stage of the game, the law simply states he’s presumed innocent, and he should be entitled to a reasonable bond. There is no way he can afford a $1.5 million cash bond. Very few people can.”

Mobile Alabama Wrong Way Driver Fatality to Grand Jury

FOX 10: Judge sends allegations of Mobile wrong-way driver fatality to grand jury

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MOBILE, Ala. (WALA) – A Semmes man traveling north in Schillinger Road drifted into the southbound lane and collided with an oncoming vehicle, killing the other driver, a police investigator testified Monday.

After hearing the evidence, Mobile County District Judge George Zoghby sent the homicide by vehicle charge against John Criswell IV, 22, to a grand jury to consider an indictment.

During Monday’s hearing, defense attorney Chase Dearman repeatedly pressed Mobile police investigator Wildfredo Fernandez about whether he determined if alcohol was a factor or if Criswell had suffered a medical emergency.

That line of questioning brought an objection from Assistant District Attorney Jennifer Wright. She noted that prosecutors have not alleged an alcohol-related offense in the criminal complaint, only that Criswell caused a death by violating a traffic rule.

“Not part of the charge,” she said. “Not relevant to probable cause.”

But Dearman pointed out that prosecutors during Criswell’s bond hearing had made a point to say that he had just left a bar on the early morning of Jan. 31.

The judge allowed Fernandez to answer a question about whether surveillance video indicated that Criswell was impaired.

“There’s no way I can tell whether he was impaired or not,” he said.

Fernandez testified that Criswell traveled about 1,700 feet from a self-storage facility to the point of impact. He said the car was traveling an estimated 58 mph. He said the driver of the other car, which was going about 39 mph, seemed to try to avoid the collision.

“It does appear she swerved because the majority of the damage, I believe, was on the passenger side,” he said.

Dearman told FOX10 News outside the courtroom that client is a law-abiding citizen.

“He’s a good young man,” he said. “He’s had steady employment, and he is well-liked and actually loved in the community. And he’s never been in trouble before in his life.”

Dearman declined to discuss whether Criswell was suffering some sort of medical crisis on the morning of the accident but faulted investigators for not pursuing that possibility. He characterized the wreck as an accident.

“It seemed very evident that they have not looked to see whether or not there was any kind of medical emergency, whether or not there was a malfunction in the vehicle,” he said. “But the officer did testify by looking at three cameras, which tracked his pattern coming down, and he did not see him driving any way erratic or anything like that.”

Original article at: FOX10