State police gang expert Lt. Keith Bevacqui and prosecutor William Porter will both be allowed to testify at the upcoming trial of four Lakewood men accused of arranging a murder in an attempt to prevent the state’s star witness in the barbershop case from testifying, a judge ruled today. Four men, James Russell, 24, and Jamell Scott, Lee Reeves and Trishawn Cochran, all 22. and reputed members of the Bloods street gang, are accused of the murder of Athelma Vazquez, 55, and the attempted murders of her teenage daughter and her daughter’s friend, Christian Vivar Granados, in their Lakewood apartment. Granados was the state’s only witness to implicate Russell, Scott and a third man, Tyleek Baker of Manchester, in the murder of Jose Francisco Olivares whowas gunned down in front of a crowd of customers inside the now-defunct Man, Woman and Child barbershop in Lakewood on the afternoon of Feb. 7, 2006. Read full report in APP.
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