The violent altercation on Ross Street in the city between Antwan L. Odom and Raymond Leach III on Aug. 4, 2018 was a case of "combat by mutual agreement," District Attorney Lawrence Friedman said in his opening statement just before noon Tuesday in Genesee County Court.
Odom's attorney Frank Housh has a different theory.
Both Friedman and Housh offered their take on the confrontation between the two former buddies and teammates during opening their opening statements, which preceeded sworn testimony by Leach, his mother, and the first officer on the scene.
The defendant, Odom, is accused of first-degree assault, a Class B violent felony, and also criminal possession of a weapon (a knife) in the fourth degree, a Class A misdemeanor.
The beef was prompted by the purported theft of about $50 stashed in a Gatorade bottle next to Leach's dresser in his bedroom at 153 Ross St. The plastic bottle turned up missing when Leach was on vacation last summer in South Carolina.
On July 29, Leach contacted Odom on social media, accusing him of taking his money.
Police were never contacted. Instead, when Leach returned home Aug. 4, he spotted Odom outside his house at 157 Ross St. and decided to confront him about the problem and handle it "man to man," Leach said on the witness stand.
Leach said he parked his car after his long drive from the South, and, instead of going home, went to confront Odom.
"We could take this elsewhere," Leach told Odom, in deference to small children playing outside.
This wasn't a case of self-defense for Odom, Friedman maintained.
Both teens walked to an area removed from the kids (149 Ross St., near a basketball hoop) and a fight ensued.
Leach acknowleged he struck the first blow and landed several others before Odom fell, rose, then got punched a few more times by Leach, before falling down again.
Odom's punches never landed, Leach said.
Leach said Odom declared "we're done" and Leach turned to go home.
Odom wound up on the losing end that afternoon -- getting pummeled into unconsciousness, according to his attorney.
Odom managed to revive quickly and pursued Leach "to seek retribution," in Friedman's theory of the case, following him to his house.
Leach testified he heard shuffling behind him, turned and saw Odom with a knife, and so Leach ran, stumbled on some wood and fell down on rocks on the ground.
Odom chased him down and took the opportunity to stab him in the back and elsewhere with a small pocket knife half the size of an ink pen, jurors were told, leaving Leach to lurch into his house and collapse on his kitchen floor.
Bloody and weakened, he yelled loudly for his mother's help.
Friedman said on Tuesday that Odom ran from the scene and disposed of the knife, which has never been recovered.
Police and medics were called, though not straightaway, and Leach was taken to Strong Memorial Hospital in Rochester where his 12 stab wounds and cuts were sutured; he was released that evening.
A large gash above the knee of Leach's right thigh was his most serious wound and he suffered nerve damage, according to statements on file by his doctor, who testifies later this morning (Wednesday).
Leach healed, returned to Batavia High School in the fall, and played "great" varsity football last year. Some pain and tingling in his nerves persist, the standout athlete said.
Friedman told jurors the evidence would show that Odom intended to cause serious physical injury and did so by means of a dangerous instrument -- a knife, which the DA said Odom carried on him because he intended to use it.
In defense attorney Housh's opening statement, he pounced on Friedman's opening statement reference to Leach's football glory-- twice, quoting the DA as saying "Ray Leach had a great season."
Housh asked "Why? What difference does it make if Ray Leach is a football player? That Batavia made it to state (Class B varsity football championship)?"
Then Odom's attorney posited that most people who believe they've been the victim of theft call police. But instead, in this case, "the victim -- a great athlete who took the football team to state -- called (Antwan) out."
"My client lost the fight -- he got beat up bad because 'Ray Leach is a great athlete,' " Housh said. "Ray Leach confronted my client and my client got the hell beat out of him."
The police, once contacted, had to arrest somebody, Housh told the jury.
But it was not going to be the guy who "rushed for 3,012 yards, had 49 touchdowns, scored 310 points (on the season) and went 410 yards in the final game and had three touchdowns...Remarkable physical achievements...It had never happened in Batavia -- the football team went to state."
Housh then surmised that the entire criminal justice system in the City of Batavia got on board with keeping their wunderkind -- "the 2018 New York State Class B Player of the Year" -- unsullied by the actions that took place Aug. 4, 2018.
By the way, the slightly harried Housh went on, Friedman neglected to mention that Leach testified under oath (before the grand jury) that he communicated to Odom his intent for street justice, posting: "I'm going to end you."
"My client is not allowed to defend himself?" he asked. "There's no evidence of serious physical injury, but they want to put my client away."
What it boils down to is that the rules mere mortals have to abide by, like calling the police when a crime is believed to have been committed, do not apply to a "super human with athletic prowess on the field. They don't apply to Ray Leach. ... I don't want to live in that world," Housh said.
The particulars in the case don't add up; they don't make sense. The evidence doesn't support (the charges) and the charges should never have been brought, Housh concluded.
The first witness called in the afternoon was Leach's mother, Michelle Thornton, who testified that Leach was 17 at the time of the incident. She said she went into his room while he was on vacation and found his mattress off the bed and on the floor; his TV had been moved; furniture drawers were open and the room was in "disarray."
Thornton said she called her son in the Palmetto State to ask him if he had left his room like that. Leach asked about his Xbox, PS4 Console (PlayStation 4 Console) and other items, including the Gatorade bottle with money in it, and she told him everything was there except the Gatorade bottle.
Asked when she first became aware that her son had returned from vacation, she replied it was when he screamed for her.
"I knew something was wrong," she told the district attorney.
It was after 3 p.m. that Saturday and she was in the living room at the other end of the first-floor dwelling. She ran to the kitchen and found Leach, bloody on the floor. She said she saw three severe wounds in his back and wounds to his chest and arms and he was screaming for help.
"He stabbed me!" he told his mother.
"Who?" she asked.
"Antwan!" he said.
Thornton said she looked outside and saw Odom's grandmother with a phone in her hand and she told her to call the police. Odom's grandmother mentioned seeing blood on Antwan's hands, Thornton said.
Her son told his mother: "I don't need police; not for $50 in change. I need help."
Someone notified the emergency dispatch center and police and medics responded.
Meanwhile "(Ray) was weak and his eyes were rolling back in his head and he was starting to lose consciousness," Thornton testified, adding that her son told her he saw Odom with a knife with a yellow handle.
She covered her son with her body, using the pressure from it to staunch the bleeding from his back, his chest, his thighs, his hand.
She told her son "stay with me."
Medics arrived and she held gauze on her son as they prepared him for ambulance transport to the hospital.
She went along and her son was rushed into the trauma unit at Strong; doctors told her a couple of the stab wounds had nicked internal organs. After lots of novocaine and stitches, he was transferred to a room and released later than night.
"My son was in a lot of pain; he fought through it," Thornton said.
Asked about how her son fared afterward, the mother said he'd cry in pain after football practice and the over-the-counter medicine Motrin he was told to take wasn't working. Leach did not want to see a doctor or take narcotics because he feared it would interfere with his football playing, which is "his life."
At some point, nerve-blocking patches were employed and although they weren't a total answer for pain, they "got him through." He still complains of the sensation of "bugs crawling in there" or "liquid coming out," his mother said.
The defense attorney then cross-examined Thornton.
"Did your son say he was going over to Antwan's to beat him up?" Housh asked.
"No," Thornton said.
"But that's what he did, didn't he?" the attorney asked.
"Yes," Thornton said.
Leach, it was said, wanted Odom to know that it was not OK for him to disrespect his home.
When Thornton discovered her son's room in a condition "beyond messy" she admitted it occurred to her that burglary was the possible explanation, yet police were not summoned.
At this point, the jury was asked to take a recess.
Housh was honing in on the fact that more valuable items remained in the bedroom, but 50 bucks in coinage from a Gatorade jug was the purported provocation for a bloody fight.
The district attorney and Housh sparred over legalese and the judge wanted to know what Housh was getting at. Housh said he would argue, based on evidence he said exists, that the stolen money was from marijuana sales. And that maybe something more valuable than coins was in the jug, too...
"What difference does it make if it's money or marijuana?" Judge Charles Zambito asked.
"Because marijuana is illegal," was Housh's exasperated reply.
Then Housh complained that Thornton had made a statement about Odom's grandmother saying her grandson had blood on his hands and he wanted the jury to be instructed to disregard the statement.
Zambito refused, saying Housh had time and opportunity to object to the statement forthwith in front of the jury and failed to do so. He also said he did not think letting the statement stand would have any substantive impact on jurors.
Housh returned to a motif he is wont to use: that he must be circumspect about his questioning to the point of second-guessing himself because "everything he does gets reported (by Friedman)" (he claims) to the New York State Commission on Judicial Conduct.
"I am being prosecuted as well," lamented the esquire.
"I don't care," Zambito said flat out. "You can't let it interfere with the defense of your client," otherwise you should remove yourself from the case.
Friedman responded to the allegation for the record: "It's ludicrous; I have not been reporting anything to the (commission)."
When the jury was ushered back in, Ray Leach took the stand.
He told the district attorney that after the fight, when he was walking back to his home, he heard feet shuffling behind him, he turned around and saw Odom with a knife approaching him. He ran and tripped on some wood and the next thing he knew Odom was on top of him stabbing him.
They tussled, then he was on top; the stabbing continued and he tried to wrest the knife away.
Leach was able to run up the stairs and into the kitchen before collapsing.
Friedman showed the jury photos of the injuries 14 months ago, the bloody striped shirt with cuts in it, and the scars as they appeared Monday (Sept. 30).
"It's hard to squeeze stuff sometimes," Leach testified about his hand injury when asked about his condition these days.
Leach was repeatedly told by the judge and the court reporter to speak up and speak clearly when he was on the witness stand.
He told the prosecutor that he couldn't practice until about a week before the start of the 2018 season. In the first game, he had to stop because the deep cut in his thigh opened up and began bleeding. It wasn't until the eighth and ninth week of the season that he got up to speed, even then he took himself out of games before they ended because of his injuries, he said.
"How else did the stab wounds affect you -- mentally?" Friedman asked.
That set Housh off, who objected to the question on the grounds that nothing in the case regarding Leach's mental health had heretofore been raised and thus it's not relevant now. His objection was sustained.
Housh on cross-examination repeated his litany of Leach's athletic achievements and asked, given all the testimony about his injuries and suffering, how he managed such feats in the months afterward.
"I wish I could have done better," said Leach.
"You were spoiling for a fight weren't you?" Housh asked of the Aug. 4th encounter.
"I wasn't spoiling," Leach replied.
Housh then had him read portions of his sworn statements, where he directly contradicted that, saying "yea" that he intended to fight because he thought Odom had stolen from him.
"Let me find out who ran through my room -- it's over for you."
However, Tuesday afternoon, he refused to answer in the affirmative to the question of intent posed by the defense attorney.
Leach noted that Odom used a "shush emoji" in their correspondence (a smiley face with an index finger over a closed mouth, meaning "keep quiet.")
"Why would he use a shush emoji if he didn't do it?" Leach asked.
Why didn't you call the cops? the attorney asked.
"Not really a cop caller like them. Not my thing," he mumbled and was told to repeat and clarify what he said.
"Is it possible you didn't want police to come because you didn't want them to know what was really stolen?" Housh asked.
"No," Leach replied.
After reiterating his recollection of the aftermath of the fight, Housh asked Leach if it was possible that some of his injuries were sustained by his fall on the rocks and wood outside his house.
"No they wouldn't have slashed me," Leach responded.
Then the defense attorney asked how it was possible for someone with his stats for rushing on the football field could be chased down by and overtaken by Odom, who is slightly built.
The trip and fall for starters, Leach explained, then he tried to get control of the knife but after 12 punctures, he "got tired from getting stabbed."
Asked if he thought Odom intended to kill him Leach said: "Little bit. Twelve times -- a little much."
Again, a direct contradiction of what the sworn statement Leach signed said.
The final line was read by Leach in court at Housh's behest: "As this was going on, I was scared. I never thought he was going to kill me."
Asked about the discrepancy then and now, Leach said: "He assured me I wasn't going to die right there."
Standing next to the witness stand, Housh leafed through all the pages of Leach's sworn statement, pointing out to the witness his signature and initials on each page in acknowledgment of the veracity of the statements and that each page had been read.
But Leach told jurors he had read none of them and signed and initialed them just to be done with the proceedings because he was in pain.
After a short recess, the jurors heard testimony from the day's final witness, Batavia Police Officer Mitchell Cowen.
He testified that on the day in question, he was just starting his 3-to-11-o'clock shift when he was dispatched to 153 Ross St. He was the first officer to arrive.
"When I entered the residence, Leach was on the floor and his mother was with him," Cowen said.
He found Leach to have mutliple lacerations, and blood was soaking through his clothes and it was on the kitchen floor.
"I rolled him on his back," Cowen recalled. "He was bleeding from multiple lacerations. I radioed for an ambulance."
After Leach was transported to Strong, Cowen went there to take photos of the injuries. He returned to Batavia Police headquarters with Leach's bloody clothes to put into evidence.
"Did you look for a knife?" Housh asked him.
"No," replied Cowen.
Did the Batavia Police Department look in the immediate area of the crime scene (for the knife)?"
"Yes," said the officer.
Cowen said he was not the evidence officer; he wrote the incident report and the narrative contained in it.
The jury was asked to leave again and Housh held forth on an "extremely improper" move by the district attorney -- something about his request for the marking of a document, hearsay, and the admissibility of a document as evidence. He went so far as to say the DA's goal in this legal manuever was to embarrass him.
Zambito allowed the document to be marked as part of the court record.
The last question for the police officer, "Did you find blood on the driveway?"
"Yes."
"Did you test it for Odom or Leach?"
"No."
Court resumes at 9:30 a.m. today (Oct. 2) with Leach's physician's testimony.
Also taking the stand will be Odom, who wore a charcoal suit, gray shirt, dark vest, bow tie, dressy black fringe-top loafers, shiny studs in both ears, and a de rigueur hairstyle with small dreadlocks on top and partially shorn sides.
