Jeffrey Brentlinger’s death on Nov. 24 was the result of “a robbery that went bad … terribly bad for everyone involved,” Logan County Assistant Prosecutor Dan Huston told a jury Tuesday at the start of Zachariah Huddleston’s trial.
Zachariah Huddleston is facing trial for murder in the Nov. 24 death of Jeffrey Brentlinger. M(EXAMINER PHOTO | JOEL E. MAST)
“This was not about drugs. This was not about sex,” he said. “You will see that Jasmine Lewis and Tatiana Freeman had no intentions of engaging in sex.
“They were there to distract Mr. Brentlinger and possibly tie him up with rope or duct tape while their co-defendants waited outside to rob him of money.”
While Huddleston, 22, did not fire the fatal shot, his participation in the robbery makes him just as responsible as the shooter for murder under Ohio law, Huston said during opening arguments.
But defense attorney Robert Grzybowski disagreed, telling the jurors the case against his client is about “splitting hairs.”
“The details of this case are important and I ask you to pay close attention to the details,” Grzybowski said. “We believe those details show Zachariah did not plan, conspire or commit this crime.”
Read complete story in Wednesday’s Examiner.
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