Crime Scene

Steven Wood is a veteran Delaware prosecutor, now leading the team that is trying to convict James Cooke Jr. in the murder of White Plains college student Lindsey Bonistall. He is well-spoken and has a very proper courtroom manner, and sometimes resorts to very fancy words that have some in the courtroom shaking their heads or maybe even heading for the dictionary. 

In some ways, he reminds me of a younger version of George Bolen, the veteran Westchester prosecutor who retired last year. That was especially the case on Friday when Wood used the words ”contumacious”, ”Herculean” and “obsequious” in rapid succession. He was trying to get the judge to bar Cooke from the courtroom for his frequent disruptions despite the defense lawyers’ mammoth, yet unsuccessful, efforts to control their client. He didn’t want the judge to think he was sucking up to him by referencing the commendable patience the judge had shown in giving Cooke many chances to behave. 

Of course there is one difference between Wood and Bolen. The Delaware prosecutor always returns my calls, even if he can’t say anything on the record. That’s more than I can say for Bolen these days. He has not returned any of the messages I’ve left for him since Jeffrey Deskovic was exonerated and released from prison in September because new testing revealed the real killer of a teenage girl in Peekskill. Bolen won a murder conviction against then 17-year-old Deskovic in 1990 with the help of a false confession and DNA evidence that didn’t match the defendant. 

C’mon George, give me a call. I’m at 914-582-7326.