Superior Court Judge Kathleen Mackay agreed to hold 21-year-old Akeel Owens and 19-year-old La’Mar Richardson without bail until the prosecutor in the case has a chance to file a motion to detain the pair.
Prosecutor Sigrid Sprotte made a convincing case at an advice of rights hearing Friday morning. The two were originally held on a $1 million bail. Public defender Julie Todman asked for that to be lowered, suggesting as indigent men they were not a flight risk. Nor did she feel they were a threat to the community, Todman said.
However, Sprotte pointed out that Owens had been charged earlier this year with a gun crime that involved shooting at police officers in a public place in the daytime.
The two men were arrested Thursday and charged with first degree murder, among other things, in the Tuesday shooting death of 26-year-old Kenroy Davis.
Both men gave their residences as Tutu Hi-Rise, where Davis was found dead in a parking lot.
A female minor was also shot in the incident. She was taken to Roy L. Schneider Hospital.
Davis, according to a source close to the case, said earlier Friday that Davis was not a resident of the area where he was killed.
Todman also requested that the court unseal the arresting affidavit in the case, but Sprotte was adamant that that could put witnesses in danger.
The judge agreed to hold the two without bail until the end of workday Tuesday, by which time Sprotte could file her detention motion.
The two young men, clad in BOC orange, sat impassively watching the proceedings, looking around behind them into the gallery occasionally as several people filed in to attend another high profile hearing scheduled to follow their advice of rights.
None of the people appeared to be there on behalf of the two accused men.
Mackay set a 9 a.m. April 10 appointment for Owens and Richardson to reappear in the court room of Judge Denise Francois.
