COURT HOUSE – Incrementally, the fate of two men associated with the death of 15-year-old Erma teenager Nicole “Nikki” Angstadt nearly two years ago has been moving forward.
Frustrated by Delays
Much of the blame for the legal lengthening can be tied to the voluminous amounts of discovery evidence that attorneys for the accused, Derrick Powers, 25, and Charles Mosley, 35, have had to wade through.
In Powers’ case, his initial attorney, Stephen Funk, ended his role as counsel for the accused following his acceptance of a new career opportunity.
Linwood attorney Michael Schreiber took over in late January of this year causing, in Schreiber’s words, a “significant delay” in proceedings.
Throughout the preliminary trial hearings, Superior Court Judge John Porto has repeatedly impelled and, at times, admonished both sides to achieve some sense of momentum in the case.
Powers and Mosley were arrested Dec. 15, 2015, two days after Angstadt’s body was discovered in the crawl space of an empty home in Rio Grande and around two weeks after she was last seen at a nearby bus stop along Rio Grande Boulevard.
By June 2016, Powers and Mosley had been indicted in Angstadt’s murder. Since then, the case has existed in legal limbo while the defense struggled to review over a thousand pages of statements and piles of discovery evidence.
A Mosley Confession?
The motions hearing Oct. 24 had not even begun when Porto expressed frustration at delays that had once again pushed back the hearing from Sept. 27 to the current date.
It was evident, following a pre-hearing sidebar between Porto, Schreiber, Mosley’s attorney Ed Weinstock and Cape May County Acting Prosecutor Robert “Rob” Johnson, that another delay was coming.
When the hearing commenced, Johnson announced that an unnamed witness had delivered to authorities, sometime between Sept. 13 and 27, a letter purportedly written by Mosley in which the defendant attested to his role in the murder.
The implication seemed to be that Powers’ involvement was not to the extent previously reported.
Johnson told the court that he planned on turning the letter over to a handwriting analyst following a forensic study by the Federal Bureau of Investigation that will look for DNA and fingerprint evidence, at which point the letter would be presented to the defense.
Johnson, however, could not provide a timeframe for that evidentiary release stating, “Since (the Oct. 1 shooting spree in) Las Vegas, the FBI has been consumed with that investigation” and does not have the readily available assets it usually has at its disposal.”
Division of the Defense
The existence of the letter introduced a complication for the defense attorneys. Up until that point, Schreiber and Weinstock have been combing through statements and compiling respective lists of proposed redactions.
Once complete, the defense attorneys would meet and would draw up an order of consent, which would state in writing what statements by their clients both sides agreed could be presented in court.
A confessional missive by Mosley would change everything, and Schreiber knows it.
After Weinstock pushed for extensive and multiple handwriting tests and casually commented as to the legitimacy of the letter, Power’s attorney moved quickly to minimize the suggestion.
“My co-counsel, I think, is being a bit too quick with this,” Schreiber exclaimed. “If there is a witness to this, I don’t need a handwriting expert. I’ll let a jury decide by seeing the letter for themselves,” something that would occur alongside the testimony of the law enforcement official who received the letter.
Porto referred to Johnson as to a “meaningful” date when all parties could return with an agreed-upon order of consent and possible results from the FBI lab.
Johnson replied that three to four weeks was conceivable but hinted that the setting of an actual trial date might help in expediting the FBI work.
After a few minutes of schedule consultations, the parties agreed to return Dec. 19 at 9:30 a.m.
To contact Christopher Knoll, email cknoll@cmcherald.com.
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