Published: May 16, 2008 12:49 am            

COURTS: Woman testifies she helped plan robbery in exchange for drugs

A woman who has already taken a guilty plea in connection with a home invasion case testified for the prosecution Thursday in the trial of her two co-defendants.

Amy L. Bower, who has pleaded guilty to fourth-degree conspiracy, told the jury that she helped plan a robbery at the Locust Street home with at least three men.

Rakeem Golson, 17, of Evans Street, and Antonio Clark, 20, of Prospect Street, are accused of storming into the apartment in the early morning hours of April 3, 2007, and robbing and assaulting one woman and threatening a man in the apartment.

They are each charged with five counts of first-degree burglary, six counts of first-degree robbery, two counts of fourth-degree conspiracy, two counts of second-degree robbery, two counts of second-degree assault and one count of second-degree burglary.

Bower testified she spoke with a man she described as “a drug dealer” on a porch on Genesee Street.

The man was on the porch with two other men. Bower said she did not know those men, but told prosecutors she saw them in the courtroom.

When asked by prosecutors to identify one of the men, however, Bower pointed to Clark and said she believed he was Golson.

She told the jury the men wanted to find marijuana, and she told them she knew there was some at a Locust Street apartment, where Shawn Pittler was living.

She testified that one of the men suggested “robbing Shawn for his weed.”

Bower said her role in the robbery would be to get them inside the home.

She said the men prepared for the robbery by placing socks on their hands and turning their clothes inside-out.

Pittler testified Wednesday that Bower knocked on his door looking for marijuana.

He said she came inside, bought marijuana from another man inside the apartment, and then left, leaving the door open.

Bower said as she was leaving, the three men came up the stairs past her.

“I screamed and ran,” she said.

Pittler testified Wednesday that three men then came inside the apartment, one carrying a knife and one carrying a gun.

The men were wearing bandanas on their faces and fitted hats, and they had socks on their hands, he said.

A woman inside the apartment, Sara G. Heal, was reportedly pistol-whipped. Pittler testified he was also struck with a gun.

The suspects reportedly got away with cash from the victims’ pockets, an Xbox game system and five videotapes.

Bower told the jury she ran back to Genesee Street, where the “drug dealer” she had spoken with earlier gave her crack cocaine as her “cut” for helping get the marijuana.

Testimony will continue today in Niagara County Court.

        

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