By Brendan Browne
The former St. John’s football star who was partially paralyzed in a 2001 shooting on the Jamaica campus closed the prosecution’s case Tuesday by claiming the face of his accused assailant, Christopher Prince, was etched in his memory.
Prince, of Elmont, L.I., who is charged with attempted murder and several counts of assault in the shooting that injured ex-linebacker Cory Mitchell and another young man, could face up to 25 years in prison if convicted by the jury in the trial in State Supreme Court in Long Island City.
Prince “put me in this chair and you don’t forget someone who shot you,” said Mitchell, who sat in his wheelchair next to the witness box. “It felt like I was standing in the runway and a plane hit me in the back.”
Mitchell, 23, said Prince’s long braids and thin face helped identify him as the alleged shooter in the March 11, 2001 incident, which took place after a fracas in a nearby bar was carried back to St. John’s campus.
Mitchell, a Yonkers resident who was a senior at the time of the shooting, arrived in an ambullete from Riverside Hospital in Yonkers and the physical struggles he is facing were evident in the courtroom. He told jurors that from the waist down, he can only slightly move his right leg, has pains throughout his body and was diagnosed with diabetes two weeks ago.
Mitchell said sores on his feet almost forced him to miss testifying this week after Judge Joel Blumenfeld ordered the Queens assistant district attorney to conclude her case by Tuesday.
Still, Prince’s defense attorney, Oliver Smith, who claims the defendant was not even present at the shooting, said outside the courtroom after Mitchell had testified that there were several discrepancies between Mitchell’s testimony and the accounts of other witnesses ADA Laurie Neustadt had called.
Unlike other witnesses, Mitchell never said he saw Prince, 22, at Traditions, the bar where the melee started, Smith said. His placement of certain people at the shooting and the words he said the shooter used prior to firing differed in the other witnesses’ testimony, Smith added.
Smith also implied the victim believed Prince to be the shooter simply because he was arrested for the crime. Prince, who was not a St. John’s student at the time, had no motive to shoot Mitchell, Smith said.
“We expected Cory to say that. He has to attribute (the shooting) to somebody,” said Smith.
According to Mitchell’s testimony, he was working as a bouncer at Traditions on Hillside Avenue in Jamaica on March 10 and early March 11 to earn extra money for the birth of his first child. He said fellow football player and bouncer Durron Newman got into a verbal altercation that night with Eric Mateo, another St. John’s student. After the bar closed, Mateo and his group of friends, which allegedly included Prince, followed Newman and Mitchell back to campus, he testified.
After more words were exchanged on campus, Prince allegedly fired several shots into a crowd, hitting Mitchell in the spine, and Rashon Fray, who was not a student, in the leg. Fray sustained only minor injuries.
St. John’s has beefed up security since the shooting, especially around its entrance gates.
The defense was expected to resume the case Wednesday and Smith said he would call witnesses for about a day and a half.
Reach reporter Brendan Browne by e-mail at TimesLedger@aol.com or by phone at 229-0300, Ext. 155.
