Drug Figure Again on Trial in Witness-Killing Case
By Theresa Conroy, Philadelphia Daily News
Feb. 16–They could be shooting a “Stop Snitchin” commercial up in courtroom 1002.
That’s where the witness-intimidation murder case against Felix Summers, suspected South Philadelphia drug dealer, began yesterday in the Criminal Justice Center.
Summers, 24, is accused of firing shots into the face of a Charlotte Presley, who fingered him for another homicide. The first time he was tried for the crime last March, the jury deadlocked.
“Charlotte Presley is dead forever for a course of action that she did which was honorable,” prosecutor Carlos Vega told jurors during his opening remarks.
“What [Summers] did cuts to the core of this court system… of a witness getting involved and she is silenced forever in an attempt to make sure he is never prosecuted,” he said.
Summers’ attorney, Jack McMahon, told the jury that Vega was merely, “trying to create a case against Mr. Summers.”
He then listed for jurors the problems he saw with the case: The star witness against Summers is his scorned lover, a lack of corroborating evidence, conflicting descriptions, faulty identifications.
Presley, 39, was killed in March 1999 at the door of her apartment. Summers’ girlfriend, Sherrie Hewitt, and friend Diana Meirino, went with Summers the night he killed Presley, Vega said.
Meirino has since been killed. Vega told jurors her mother will testify that Meirino confessed to being with Summers that night.
Meirino earned a role in the intricate drama of murder and intimidation when she witnessed the drive-by shooting of Veronica Rios in 2001. Summers and two co-defendants were found not guilty of that shooting in 2004.
Presley was a witness to the murder of John Niles, who was 19 when he was killed in 1999. Summers went to trial for the crime after Presley was killed. He was found not guilty.
Summers has been a suspect in four murders and seven other shootings.
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