Cobra Killer (32 page)

In addition, the February 10, 2007 search warrant of Cuadra and Kerekes’ home yielded perhaps the most telling physical evidence. There police found numerous items, including two Sony digital video cameras (model numbers DCR-VS2000 and HDR-FX1) with their serial numbers “forcibly removed and obliterated.” Kocis’ friend Robert Wagner later positively identified the cameras as ones Kocis had purchased and were not present in his home after he was discovered dead. Police later confirmed that Kocis purchased the cameras at a New York City camera store in 2005.

Even more troubling for defense attorneys, investigators found a message board known as “The Digital Video Information Network” designed for individuals to read and post questions and answers about digital video equipment. They noted that on January 29, 2007, five days after Kocis’ murder, Cuadra posted an inquiry on the site asking about the operation of the HDR-FX1 camera, the same type of camera missing from Kocis’ home.

Circumstantial evidence it was—but it reflected quite poorly on Cuadra. Why, for instance, would anyone buy new cameras and then scrape off the serial numbers? Why would someone who said he never knew Bryan Kocis pay for a background check on him in the days just before his murder? Further, why would Cuadra purchase and use a pre-paid cell phone only for the purposes of calling Kocis? These were part of the difficult, or nearly impossible, questions the state placed before the jury with little or no possible rebuttal from Cuadra.

Melnick’s prosecution team also focused heavily on crime scene photos and post-mortem photos of the victim. A deputy county coroner who retrieved Kocis’ body on the night of the murder, and the pathologist who conducted an autopsy the next morning, both provided graphic testimony of how Kocis died.

Getting to a motive

Melnick then turned his efforts to establishing what police and prosecutors believed was the motive for Kocis’ murder: Cuadra’s greed and desperation fueling his desire to get Kocis out of the way in order to use Sean Lockhart in his gay porn videos. To establish motive, Melnick called a series of witnesses who testified that they were present when Cuadra (and his partner Kerekes) openly discussed the need of getting Lockhart involved with BoyBatter Productions, and what it could mean to them financially.

Cuadra’s former friend Andrew Shunk said Cuadra and Kerekes “wanted to do a pornography film featuring Harlow and Sean Lockhart. They thought that by bringing in Sean Lockhart or Brent Corrigan, that it would bring in a six-figure profit (for) the company; that combining Brent Corrigan’s experience in the pornography industry as well as Harlow’s, that it would be a new phenomenon.” Shunk said Cuadra had called him from Vegas during his meeting with Lockhart and Roy and was excited about the potential Lockhart’s presence could bring.
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Shunk’s one-time boyfriend, Adam Greiber testified he also overhead conversations about attracting a new star to the BoyBatter site, but said he never heard the name Sean Lockhart or Brent Corrigan directly. He did hear, however, what the hoped for result would be. Greiber said Cuadra claimed that the new star “would definitely bring their company to a new level. The initial company BoyBatter was already viewed as a leading Internet site; but obviously the sign of a well-known adult film actor would bring their company to the next level.”
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Justin Hensley, who worked and lived with Cuadra and Kerekes, said that the defendant was focused on recruiting people “with stardom” because that could “help boost profit in a major way.” Hensley told the court that he heard Cuadra say that “Cobra Video was a main rival and that was it.”
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He said that Cuadra and Kerekes were excited when they returned from their January 2007 trip to Las Vegas, but only mentioned Brent Corrigan’s name in their discussions. They also proudly showed off a photo of Cuadra and Corrigan (alias Lockhart) taken outside a Las Vegas restaurant.

Cuadra’s regular once-a-month escort client, Joseph Ryan said he heard Cuadra discussing Corrigan-Lockhart as early as May of 2006. Ryan said Cuadra had reported he had made contact with Lockhart via MySpace and that discussions were underway. “He was quite excited about it,” Ryan said, and thought “it would be a very good match.”
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Ryan said he went online and looked up Lockhart’s photos and videos and assured Cuadra he believed they would be a good match sexually in a porn video.

Ryan said he also saw a lot of online chatter about the ongoing contract struggles Lockhart was having with Kocis and Cobra Video. “I was very concerned about the pending (Cobra) lawsuit that had been going on,” Ryan said, adding that he “relayed and advised (Cuadra) that he probably shouldn’t do anything until the lawsuit was settled; or that if he wanted to do something, he should probably talk to Cobra (Video).”
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Ryan also testified that he had received a “grandiose” e-mail from Kerekes via the BoyBatter site that gloated about the pending arrival of Lockhart to their productions.

Lockhart and Roy also testified that Cuadra and Kerekes remained persistent and aggressive in their attempts to get Lockhart lined up for their site, on a per-scene fee basis.

Bryan Kocis’ final contacts

Juror’s also heard that late on Tuesday night, January 23, 2007, Bryan Kocis took a phone call that just days before would have seemed impossible. On the line that evening was Sean Lockhart, Kocis’ one-time discovery and prized performer, talking to him about future projects. “For a long time, I viewed Bryan as a mentor,” Lockhart remembered. “A lot of those conversations I had with Bryan that week were…for advice. That sticks out in my mind (that I was) approaching him based on his business experience….”
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It seemed Kocis’ cell phone was always busy, and that continued into the night he died. Kocis spent time talking to several people, including his Los Angeles-based attorney, Sean E. Macias, a business litigation and intellectual property litigation lawyer.

Macias had tried to help Kocis maintain control of the screen name Brent Corrigan through a protracted battle, but he had not been a direct part of the settlement negotiations. According to Robert Wagner, by that time the Macias-Kocis relationship was getting “a bit contentious” and Kocis was growing weary of an expensive lawyer tab that didn’t seem to be leading to a resolution.

Macias said he spoke to Kocis by phone at 7:50 P.M. on Wednesday, January 24, 2007, just moments before he was murdered. Macias described Kocis as being “in a good mood” during their brief conversation. “He was expecting a guest at his house.(As) I was chatting with him, he said that he had a model coming over; and he went to answer the door, and he answered the door, greeted someone and that’s what I heard,” Macias said. Unable to hear the name Kocis used in greeting his guest, Macias said he could only recall that it started with the letter “D.” Macias said he never heard the other person’s voice as they came into the house and Kocis returned to the line and ended the call.
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Getting Macias’ cooperation with the investigation and for the trial of Cuadra would prove challenging. Melnick said Pennsylvania authorities were ultimately forced to get a subpoena served on Macias by the Los Angeles District Attorney’s office to compel him to cooperate. Macias even balked at travel plans arranged by Pennsylvania authorities, insisting that two airline tickets be purchased so that he could be guaranteed an empty seat next to him.
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“No offense to the residents of Pennsylvania,” Macias said at trial, “but I had no desire to be flown out here. I had no recollection of the events that transpired. I mean, I knew what happened, but I didn’t think I could offer any testimony, so I fought the subpoena.”
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Robert Wagner testified that his friend Bryan was “excited” about greeting “Danny Moilin” because “He thought he was cute.”
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Wagner said he viewed e-mailed pictures of Moilin that Kocis shared with him. Wagner said he told Kocis that “I didn’t think he would be particularly good for the company. He was muscular and older. Muscular is fine, but he wasn’t, like, the twinky kind of muscular that Bryan tended to go for. He was big, flabby muscled.”
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Kocis and Wagner would talk by phone for the last time during the early evening hours of January 24 as Kocis awaited his guest, and Wagner departed his workplace in New York City. Wagner said the call lasted only about ten minutes as he rollerbladed from his office at 90 Park Avenue to his apartment on Ninth Avenue in Manhattan.

During the call, Kocis was “about to do cartwheels” Wagner said because he had settled his lawsuit with Lockhart and LSG Media. Wagner said Kocis was also excited because “I think he was going to get some play (or sex) that night.”
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An unanswered call

Among Bryan Kocis’ small group of close friends was Deborah Roccograndi of Kingston, Pennsylvania, a former co-worker at Pugliese Eye Care. Although their lives were very different, Roccograndi considered Kocis to be her best friend. “We talked on probably a daily basis, and we usually would get together once a week,” she said. “You know, he was like a girlfriend to me, my best friend. We talked, you know, personally.”
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Roccograndi confirmed what others reported—Kocis wanted no surprise visitors at his home. She had tried once—bearing a birthday present—only to be told to wait outside and he would meet her there.

Kocis would discuss some of his business enterprises with her, Roccograndi said, but not in detail. She didn’t approve of the porn business, and Kocis avoided telling her details that would make her uncomfortable.

She did know, though, that he had returned from California a happy man. “It was one of the happiest times in his life, because he had settled an ongoing (thing), the Grant and Sean thing,” she said. “I mean, we’ve never seen him happier.”
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Roccograndi said Kocis was so excited about events, in fact, that he had called her on his cell phone from the airport to let her know how the settlement had been worked out. They continued to talk during the days that followed and true to her word, Roccograndi placed a call to Kocis’ cell phone (and then to his home phone) at 8:12 P.M. on Wednesday, January 24, 2007.

It was a call he didn’t answer.

Eerily, in all likelihood, Roccograndi left her voice mail message at about the same time her friend Bryan Kocis was being murdered.

Lockhart and Roy and the California tapes

Testimony by Sean Lockhart was greatly anticipated, and local media reported his presence in the courtroom on day four of the Cuadra trial drew the largest audience of curiosity seekers—rendering a standing room only gallery in the ancient Luzerne County Court Room No. 2.

Both Lockhart and Grant Roy had their testimony closely tied by prosecutors to the tapes and transcripts from their dinner and beach meetings with Cuadra and Kerekes in California in April 2007. Prosecutors painstakingly walked Lockhart and Roy through the tapes, the transcripts, a seven-minute video shot of Cuadra and Lockhart on the beach, and still photographs of the group as they met for lunch.

Attorneys for Cuadra, D’Andrea and Walker, raised no strenuous or substantive objection to the introduction of the tapes or the transcripts. The only objection raised was regarding the Black’s Beach transcript. “The defense has certain issues with this (transcript) and has opposition to it being admitted on its face value,” D’Andrea said. “We have no opposition to it being admitted as a guide; (but) there are some differences of opinion that we have of what actually some of the words are in the transcript.”
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D’Andrea asked the court to provide jurors an instruction to use the transcript only as a guide, but not to use it as “an exact replica of the tape.” Judge Olszewski declined D’Andrea’s suggestion that he provide the jury a special instruction on the transcript, but permitted a statement on the record reflecting that it was being admitted over the defense’s objection. The tapes and the transcripts were key pieces of evidence and likely would play a major role in any Cuadra appeal.
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Lockhart and Roy also provided key testimony that indicated the lengthy and ugly battle they had engaged with Kocis was coming to an end, and was coming to its resolution
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Kocis was murdered. Their testimony included detailed explanations of their assistance to law enforcement officials who were focused on Cuadra and Kerekes as prime suspects. If anyone had any remaining doubt about any possible involvement by the two in the murder, their detailed testimony knocked that out (even if their lack of a motive hadn’t convinced observers before).

Lockhart’s admission creates an issue

Lockhart’s testimony, incidentally, almost didn’t happen. Under routine questioning explaining his background and business, Lockhart acknowledged under oath to Melnick that he had acted in gay porn videos before he was eighteen years old, a violation of federal and state laws.

Judge Olszewski immediately removed the jury and explored the issue of whether Lockhart should continue testifying without first consulting with an attorney. “He’s just admitted to crimes,” Olszewski said to Melnick and Cuadra’s attorneys.
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The judge said he was concerned that Lockhart needed to consult with an attorney, or the court needed to consider whether immunity was needed. “I’m not saying right now definitively that (Lockhart) must have counsel,” Judge Olszewski said. “I’m raising the question, which I believe, is a legitimate one.”
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Olszewski said he was not raising the issue as one of misconduct by the district attorney’s lawyers, but doing so out of “an abundance of caution” to ensure that Lockhart’s rights were protected.