It was early in the morning on March 7, 2009, when brothers Reuben and Philip George left Club Lexus in Smith Bay. That’s when they were met by a volley of gunfire.
Testifying on the stand in Superior Court Wednesday, Reuben George said he tried to pull his brother down, but it was too late. He realized Philip was dead when he felt him "fall" in his arms.
"He was a loving father and a loving human being," George said of his brother. "I miss him dearly."
Murmurs of approval and muffled sniffling filtered through the courtroom when George described how he felt about his brother.
But for the most part, his testimony — a key component of the government’s case against the man charged with gunning down Philip George that Saturday morning — had family members shaking their heads and throwing their arms up in frustration as George failed to identify the accused, 22-year-old Richie Fontaine, as the killer.
At the end of about half an hour’s worth of questioning from government attorney Claude Walker, George said he did see Fontaine outside the club and remembered talking about him to the police about a week later. He even remembered picking Fontaine’s picture out of a photo array.
But when presented with a document that was identified as a signed police statement, George said, "I recall talking to the police, but I don’t recall giving them a statement."
And when Walker asked him whether he remembered identifying Fontaine as the shooter in the police statement, George said, "I don’t remember identifying anyone as the shooter," adding that he told police "a lot of things," but was in "distress" at the time.
The case turned sticky when the questions focused on the photo array. At the time the identification was made, George was in prison, charged with shooting at police in the middle of a high-speed chase on March 14, 2009—a week after Philip’s murder.
When the case went to trial at the end of last year, Fontaine became a major player, as prosecutors argued that George and his other brother, Isaiah, allegedly took to the streets in an attempt to kill Fontaine for gunning down their brother.
The brothers were acquitted of most of the charges during trial, while the jury deadlocked on counts of attempted first-degree murder and conspiracy, forcing a mistrial.
While on the stand Wednesday, George said he picked Fontaine’s photo out of the mix only to show police that he knew who Fontaine was, and was not "mistaking him" for anyone else.
And all the while, he kept his head down, never looking up unless specifically asked to do so by Judge James Carroll III — even when Walker asked him whether he saw anyone in the courtroom that was at the night club when the shooting occurred.
At that point, Fontaine, dressed in a crisp white shirt and black slacks, was at the defense table with his attorneys.
"No," George said.
Carroll interceded, asking George to lift his head and take a look around the room before answering again.
"Do you see anyone in the courtroom that was present that night?" Carroll said.
This time, George lifted his head and looked straight at Fontaine.
"Yes," he said, describing what Fontaine was wearing.
Though it was clear the government didn’t think George was cooperating on the stand — Walker even issued an early warning to the jury about his "strange mannerisms" — that didn’t stop them from continuing with the case.
As the first day of the trial progressed, police detectives who watched George identify Fontaine in the photo array were called, along with Club Lexus owner Condon John, who said she went to the nightclub after hearing the gunshots and found that police had already collected the footage from surveillance cameras set up around the property.
But that footage was not played Wednesday, after John said she had only seen a copy of it for the first time on Tuesday.
Fontaine’s defense attorney James Bernier Jr. made it clear that there was no way the government could prove the copy — now contained on a jump drive — was not edited or tampered with.
He objected to the footage being shown to the jury, and Carroll called a recess in hopes that the attorneys could resolve the matter. John looked over a portion of the tape and told the judge it was the same copy she had seen the day before, but Bernier was still adamant that there was no real way to identify whether the footage was authentic.
Questioning John on the stand, Bernier tried to figure out who maintains the club’s video footage and how often the cameras are checked, but Carroll called it quits for the day after the government stepped back in for re-direct.
Recently convicted in two separate robbery cases — and awaiting trial on a couple of other matters — Fontaine is no stranger to the law. This time around, he’s facing first-degree murder, attempted first-degree murder, first-degree assault, reckless endangerment and four counts of weapons charges for allegedly gunning down Philip George and seriously wounding another man at Club Lexus last March.
The second victim is still alive, but has a bullet lodged in his brain, Walker said Wednesday.
The trial resumes Thursday morning at 9:30.
