Carlston W. Coleman, the first defense witness in a complex criminal conspiracy trial under way in Richmond County Superior Court, testified Monday afternoon. He denied having anything to do with either a 1997 double homicide or the 1998 abduction of Augusta Sam's Club Manager David Holt.
There was no conspiracy, no gang, no organized crime involving him and his five co-defendants, Mr. Coleman, 31, told the jury.
And he has no idea, Mr. Coleman testified, what prosecution witness David Easterling was talking about when he told the court he drove Mr. Coleman and Ronald Coleman, 29, to the Sam's Club and later saw them run from the scene, where Mr. Holt was left to die in the trunk of a burning car June 21, 1998.
"I don't know the young man," Carlston Coleman said of Mr. Easterling.
In fact, he said, North Carolina hotel receipts show he was far away the night Mr. Holt, 45, died.
The two Mr. Colemans, who are not related, have pleaded innocent to charges including kidnapping and armed robbery in Mr. Holt's abduction. They and four others - Kendric Dudley, 30; Ronnie B. Overton Jr., 22; Charles Winters, 28; and Jarman Harold, 25 - have each pleaded innocent to a charge of violating the state's Racketeer Influenced and Corrupt Organizations law.
The six men are accused of taking part in various crimes that prosecutors contend were a conspiracy to engage in a criminal enterprise in violation of the RICO law. Among crimes alleged in the RICO count are conspiracy to kill, false imprisonment and battery in the deaths of Manuel Arroyo, 19, and Ryan Singh, 21, in Augusta on July 23, 1997.
Mr. Arroyo and Mr. Singh were found dead in the trunk of a burned car in Warren County the next day.
In other testimony Monday, Carlston Coleman denied living in a McDowell Street apartment in July 1997, where a witness testified the conspiracy took place. Mr. Coleman also denied he had telephone service in that apartment until September 1997, although prosecutors previously introduced telephone records linking him to the apartment.
In the RICO charge, the six defendants are accused of plotting Mr. Arroyo's and Mr. Singh's slayings at the McDowell Street apartment.
Defense testimony will continue today with Carlston Coleman facing cross-examination by prosecutors.
Reach Sandy Hodson at (706) 823-3226 or shodson@augustachronicle.com.
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