Cobra Killer (26 page)

Cuadra used the blog to openly suggest that it was Sean Lockhart and Grant Roy who were responsible for the death of Bryan Kocis. “You shouldn’t always believe what you read ’cause a lot of things in our business are made up,” Cuadra cautioned. “(D)on’t believe the story Brent Corrigan tells the police for his limited immunity he received in reference to the statement he gave. Brent did what he did to cover his ass, he had a motive, everyone knew this and he needed to get the heat off himself, so he did, he diverted them to me, and made his self (sic.) look innocent.”
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Cuadra also referred to what he believed were discrepancies in Lockhart and Roy’s version of the infamous January 2007 Las Vegas discussion about making Kocis “go away.” Unfortunately for Cuadra, however, the only conversations on tape were the April 2007 ones in which he and Kerekes openly implicated themselves. (E-mail claims uncovered later where Kerekes attempted to make Roy believe the Las Vegas and San Diego conversations were taped were never produced in Kerekes or Cuadra’s defense.)

Cuadra incorrectly predicted that Lockhart would someday “be sitting right next to me in Luzerne County here” and that “he can’t keep weaseling his way out of this, there is to (sic.) much stuff linking him.”
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Later, Cuadra would again surface, this time in the November 2007 “Letters to the Editor” of
Out
magazine in a surreal letter “thanking
Out
for publishing the article on the death of Bryan C. Kocis” and doing so in “an unbiased form.” He told the editor, “Joseph M. Kerekes and I were at our most vulnerable when the interviews for that article took place. Your writer could easily have exploited us for information or cast a darker cloud over us in order to make the story entertaining. He did neither.” Cuadra signed his letter eerily, “Your new
Out
reader 4 life.”
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Paying for a defense

Attempts to raise the funds needed to enact a Cuadra plan for acquittal included auctions operated by Cuadra’s family and friends via the “Free Harlow Cuadra Blog.” Items listed for the October 2007 auction was a chinchilla fur jacket, other pieces of clothing, paintings and model cars, and “to the highest bidder,” two forty-five-minute exclusive interviews with Harlow and Joe for the news media or general public. The interview exclusive had a starting bid of $500 but no one ever purchased it. “The dollar amount to defend a capital case is over $250,000 combined,” Cuadra wrote to supporters on his blog. “We have tried requesting donations and putting up our many personal items for auction to raise these funds. We have not been successful in meeting this demand (as) the donations and items that were purchased have not covered any where close to the funds required.”
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A family auction site also went up online, headed by Cuadra’s mother Gladis Zaldivar. She begged of readers to “please help free my son, he been (sic.) accused of murder and I don’t have the money for the attorney fees.” She added, “We all know the profession my son is in regardless of my son’s sexual orientation that is not what is at hand today. Gay or not I will always love my son Harlow. I except (sic.) the fact that my son is gay, I will not except (sic.) the fact that he is being wrongfully accused of murder.”
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Kerekes’ parents, Fred and Rosalie, were also active in trying to raise funds. They posted checking account routing numbers online, along with MySpace and PayPal accounts to make it easier for donations to come in to benefit their son’s defense. “They seized all their property and assets,” Joe’s father Fred Kerekes told the
Times Leader
. “Right now, they don’t have any money for lawyers. I’m hoping to raise $150,000 for my son and Harlow (Cuadra).”
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Fred Kerekes said his son called him just before they were arrested. “He said, ‘There are twenty officers out there, they are arresting me.’ I talked to him in jail and he said they never read him his rights or told him why he was arrested.”

Fred Kerekes also aired a similar complaint to Cuadra and Kerekes’ attorneys regarding the freeze Virginia investigators placed on bank accounts and other assets held by the couple as part of their ongoing RICO investigation. “I believe the police trumped up these charges to seize everything they own,” Fred Kerekes said. He said he did not believe his son was involved in the murder, and spoke up as well for his son’s partner, Harlow Cuadra. “Harlow is a very nice young man. Both he and my son come to my house occasionally. We had them there on Thanksgiving, Christmas and they were here on Mother’s Day.”
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Other help was on the way. Former gay porn actor turned producer, Jason Ridge, and his fellow performer Danny Vox also attempted to help pay for the defense. Ridge said, “I am on a campaign along with a few other people to help the accused Harlow Cuadra fight this unjust accusation toward him.”(No mention of Kerekes’ situation was made.)
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Ridge, who starred in at least six gay adult films between 2003 and 2007 (including
Nasty, Nasty
and
Gunnery Sgt. McCool),
started Ridgeline Productions in 2007. “We are making a defense fund to help (Harlow) get an attorney to fight this all the way through. I felt compelled to do this because as a fellow performer in the business, we have to look out for one another,” Ridge said. “Harlow deserves a fair trial and he is desperately in need of money. As an American, everyone deserves a fair trial, unfortunately that means you need a lot of money. This is just my way of trying to help and once again, innocent until proven guilty.”
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If others in the gay porn world were concerned about the fate of Cuadra and Kerekes, they never made that concern known as the porn industry continued operating while barely missing a beat.

While Cuadra and Kerekes sat in jail, their Norfolk Male Companions business crumbled. The
Virginian-Pilot
reported that there was no doubt the company was a front for illegal prostitution. A confidential informant told police that he worked as a prostitute for the business and performed sexual acts with clients while Cuadra was present, and confirmed that Cuadra and Kerekes were the primary escorts working from the home.
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The informant allegedly told police that the escort service charged $200 per hour for escort services performed at the home, or “in calls,” and $250 an hour for services elsewhere (such as at a client’s home or hotel), considered an “out call.”
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Virginia authorities eventually dropped their probe into whether Cuadra and Kerekes had conspired to violate the state’s RICO act, and related money laundering charges, but not before a second RICO-related search warrant was served on the home four days after the arrest of Cuadra and Kerekes. Reports from the May 18 raid noted that the escort service operating there provided “a massage table, multiple head shower, king-sized bed, leather couch, and hot tub.”
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 During the raid, investigators collected desktop and laptop computers and monitors; a variety of digital still and video cameras; a printer; a Bose media center and stereo system, including CD changers and surround sound speakers; an iPod; numerous pieces of jewelry, including watches, gold necklaces, cufflinks, and bracelets; a Louis Vuitton bag; racing tire rims and various accessories for a Honda S2000; four vehicles: Honda Civic S2000, Dodge Viper, Chevrolet Corvette and a BMW; and $26,585.25 in cash.
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All of the vehicles in Cuadra and Kerekes’ possession were sent back to the lenders who still held leases or loans on them, according to Virginia Beach Senior Commonwealth Attorney Scott Alleman.
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Cuadra and Kerekes would later complain loudly that the cash and other assets were not available to them to hire defense counsel as they prepared for trial. State and federal investigators believed the items seized from their home and bank accounts were the result of criminal activity and therefore not available to the defendants. “No one will ever talk about what happened to all that stuff,” Kerekes complained from inside a Pennsylvania prison. “They just took it and it’s gone and we never could get it so we could hire proper attorneys.”
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State and federal authorities insist all assets seized from the couple’s home were forfeited because they were gained as part of an illegal operation. The base for the Cuadra and Kerekes enterprise would also soon be gone. Public property records in Virginia showed Cuadra and Kerekes’ home at 1028 Stratem Court was held on two mortgages totaling $533,400.

In August 2007, the house was listed for sale because prosecutors determined Cuadra and Kerekes owed almost as much as the assessed value of the home: $542,683. The original listing price for the home was set at $679,000 by Virginia Beach real estate agent Kelley Bass, noting that “this home is priced to sell! Motivated seller!” Unfortunately, there were no motivated buyers at that price, especially in a U.S. real estate market hemorrhaging from the sub-prime lending crisis that swept the industry.
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After about two years of struggling on the market, in July 2009, the house sold at a Sheriff’s auction sale to a mortgage lender specializing in repossessed property at a listed price of $573,434. The buyers, apparently hoping to flip the house for profit, promptly put the house back on the market at a highly reduced price that continued to fall as the months drifted by.
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The house was not seized by Virginia investigators, Alleman said, because
“
the house would have been more costly to pursue than it would have to just give it back to (Cuadra and Kerekes).”
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The police raids on their home seem to particularly anger Kerekes. “They took everything, they took a four-hundred pound safe. They pried it open…with the jaws of life.(The police) called the fire department over, our neighbor was there and you know, they were giving us a play-by-play (of the search),” he said.

Kerekes said that during the search, his mother Rosalie confronted investigators as they hauled away computers and other valuables from the home. Among the seized items was a “state-of-the-art” Sony video camera, one Cuadra called his “baby.” Before police took it, however, its contents were backed up online. “The only reason BoyBatter survived,” Kerekes said, “is because we took the two computers that had all the movies on them over (to) my mom’s house.”
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In October 2007, under a heading “We are Innocent!” Cuadra and Kerekes announced they were selling Norfolk Male Companions and its related websites. It was unclear how much those “assets” would even be worth with Cuadra and Kerekes behind bars facing murder charges, but the website sale plowed forward. “The sale of Norfolk Male Escorts is intended to be sold to someone that would like to run an escort service, a legitimate escort service,” Cuadra posted to his web blog. He claimed he and Kerekes “made a lucrative living off” the escort service and “the traffic the site brings on the Internet alone would keep someone busy for a long time.”
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Both Kerekes and Cuadra attempted to reassure their families, friends, and supporters of their innocence. “I do not want people to judge Joe or I before all the evidence has come to light,” Cuadra wrote. “I do understand that some things that are out there do not look good, but there are always two sides to every story and people should stop and think before judging anyone else.”
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Building the Case against Cuadra and Kerekes

“This letter is for your eyes only. Thank you so much for your help…like I said over the phone, if my lawyer needs you to testify for me in court, your transportation and salary will be covered.”

—Harlow Cuadra letter to potential alibi
witness Nep Maliki

Lawyer roulette

Cuadra and Kerekes worked their way through a dizzying array of defense attorneys engaged from just before their arrest until their convictions almost two years later. The “lawyer roulette” that took place was a direct result of financial resources the couple either never had or resources that would soon be out of their reach. Complicating matters, public defenders identified and appointed for Cuadra and Kerekes in small-town Pennsylvania had prior connections to the victim, Bryan Kocis.

Prosecutors continued to raise conflict of interest concerns in the closing months of 2007 as both men moved closer to an ever-changing trial date. One obvious conflict was presented immediately with the appointment and then withdrawal of Al Flora, Jr. to represent Kerekes. Flora had represented the victim, Bryan Kocis during his 2001 arrest on previous criminal charges. Another potential public defender, Jonathan Blum, also had prior contact with Kocis.

The troubles would continue when defense attorney Demetrius Fannick sought to be installed as Cuadra’s chief counsel, filing with the court on January 29, 2008 to replace his existing court-appointed defenders, Stephen Menn and Michael Senape.

Luzerne County prosecutors complained loudly, asking that Fannick be disqualified to serve Cuadra since he had met privately with Kerekes on at least eight previous occasions between October 26, 2007 and January 11, 2008. Fannick denied any “details about the offenses or possible defenses were discussed in the meetings,” and that the two limited their eight discussions to how to pay Fannick for defending Kerekes.
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Fannick insisted there would be no conflict and questioned the prosecutor’s motives for raising the issue. “I simply think they’re raising it because I kicked their ass in the last homicide case I did. I think the DA is just doing it out of spite,” Fannick told the
Times Leader.
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