Testimony

A curse and a push ignited a series of events that led to charges of assault and terroristic threats against Dajuan Wagner, the Camden High School basketball star, according to testimony yesterday in the Family Division of Superior Court. Wagner is being tried with teammate James Pulliam and friend Dawuan Potter. Wagner and Potter, both 18, are charged with assaulting and threatening a senior at Camden High. Pulliam, 18, is charged with assaulting the boy and his 16-year-old sister.

Federal law enforcement authorities say that reputed mobster Dominick Canterino is a conduit between New York City record company mogul Morris Levy and Genovese crime family boss Vincent "The Chin" Gigante. But a federal judge ruled yesterday that the alleged relationship could not be brought out during a conspiracy trial in which Levy and Canterino are co- defendants. U.S. District Judge Stanley S. Brotman yesterday would not allow proposed testimony from two FBI agents about alleged organized-crime links among Levy, Canterino and Gigante.

It looked like an open-and-shut case. A cop pulls over a car, walks up to the driver's door, and sees a plastic baggy of marijuana. He brings in a drug-sniffing dog to prove probable cause for a search, gets a warrant, and finds a kilo of weed in the trunk. That's what Officer Steven Lupo put in his report and testified to in Philadelphia Municipal Court. Then defense attorney Michael Diamondstein produced the video. Turned out reality was different. The video taken from nearby surveillance cameras contradicted key facts in Lupo's report and sworn testimony.

Raising their voices and waving their arms, defense lawyers yesterday hammered away at Howard Beach attack survivor Cedric Sandiford but were unable to shake the major parts of his story. In a blistering cross-examination that could be heard in the hallways of Queens Supreme Court, the lawyers pointed out minor inconsistencies in Sandiford's testimony and conflicts with testimony from other witnesses. But Sandiford, often outshouting the lawyers, stood firm that he, Michael Griffith, 23, and Timothy Grimes, 19, were attacked by 10 to 12 white teens armed with baseball bats and tree limbs last Dec. 20. Griffith was killed when he was hit by a car on the Belt Parkway while trying to flee.

Admitted mob underboss Philip Leonetti wasn't allowed to testify that attorney Robert F. "Bobby" Simone had been told twice in advance of plans to kill enemies of mob boss Nicodemo Scarfo. U.S. District Judge James T. Giles, who is presiding over Simone's racketeering trial, barred prosecutors from eliciting from Leonetti testimony that Scarfo had told Simone of plans to murder two underlings, the Daily News has learned. Leonetti, who is Scarfo's nephew, completed his testifying for the prosecution Tuesday without being asked about the alleged murder discussions.

The trial testimony of a New York City man who survived the Howard Beach racial attack contradicts stories he told to police and a newspaper reporter after the incident, the defense charged yesterday. "The testimony flatly contradicts what he said within a month or so of the incident," defense lawyer Ronald Rubinstein said after witness Cedric Sandiford completed his testimony in Queens Supreme Court. "Was he telling the truth then, or is he telling the truth now?" Rubinstein asked.

An Army private shot a Willingboro store clerk because she would not cooperate during a robbery in 1985, according to testimony yesterday in Burlington County Superior Court. Jacinto Koger "Joey" Hightower, 23, of Pageant Lane, Willingboro, is accused of fatally shooting Cynthia Barlieb, 25, of Hazelwood Circle, Willingboro, during a robbery attempt at a Cumberland Farms store on July 7, 1985. No money was taken from the cash register. Hightower could face the death penalty if the jury finds him guilty.

A state police scientist had no basis for concluding in court that his laboratory tests showed gunshot residue on one of Terry McCracken's hands, McCracken's attorney contended in a motion filed yesterday in Delaware County Common Pleas Court. The motion is the latest - and probably the last - of several that lawyer John G. McDougall has filed requesting a new trial for McCracken, 22, who was convicted of second-degree murder, robbery and conspiracy in connection with the killing of David Johnston, 71, during a robbery in March 1983 at Kelly's Deli in Collingdale.

After testimony from 105 people, the last witness stepped down yesterday in the marathon federal corruption trial of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, setting the stage for closing arguments next week. Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Zauzmer is expected to spend most of Monday delivering the prosecution's closing, four months after fellow prosecutor John J. Pease gave the opening address Oct. 22. After defense lawyers Dennis J. Cogan and Edwin J. Jacobs Jr. give their closing addresses, Zauzmer will deliver a rebuttal.

The Supreme Court agreed yesterday to try to resolve the highly sensitive conflict between the welfare of young children and the rights of alleged sex offenders in the nation's steadily increasing number of child-abuse cases. The justices will decide by July whether a defendant's constitutional right to confront accusers face to face in open court may be limited when the accusers are children. Child psychiatrists believe that such a confrontation can be terrifying for a child, especially when the adult is a relative and the accusation involves sexual misconduct.

PHOENIX - Jurors deciding the fate of convicted murderer Jodi Arias were brought to tears Thursday, visibly shaken by dramatic statements from the victim's family members as they described how their lives were ripped apart by the killing. Travis Alexander's younger brother Steven told the panel he was hospitalized for ulcers, lost sleep and separated from his wife. He paused to choke back tears and regain his composure as he recounted the phone call he got from his sister the day his brother's body was found.

Update Wednesday: The read back of testimony is underway. The Philadelphia jury in the murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell cut deliberations short Tuesday after asking the judge to have the testimony of a Gosnell clinic worker read back to them. Because the testimony of Lynda Williams was spread over parts of two days, April 9 and 10, and covers about 270 pages, Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey P. Minehart and prosecution and defense lawyers decided to do the reading at one stretch when the jury returns Wednesday to begin a sixth full day of deliberations.

JACK McMAHON, the often explosive and combative lawyer for accused baby-killer Dr. Kermit Gosnell, rested his case yesterday without as much as a whimper. Without calling Gosnell, 72, to the witness stand, nor anyone else to speak in his defense, McMahon rose from his seat just after 1:30 p.m. and announced that he was resting his case. Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Minehart then informed the jury that the next step in the capital-murder trial would be closing arguments on Monday.

KARNAMAYA MONGAR was turned away from two abortion clinics in Virginia and one in Washington, D.C., because she was too far along in her pregnancy, before being referred to Dr. Kermit Gosnell, the woman's tearful daughter testified Tuesday morning. The decision by Mongar, 41, to undergo a November 2009 abortion at Gosnell's West Philadelphia clinic ultimately led to her death from a drug overdose and to Gosnell being charged with her murder. Yashoda Gurung, aided by an interpreter, spoke softly and at times used tissue to wipe tears as she spoke of the two-day abortion procedure that ended with her mother's death.

Testimony in a Norristown double-murder trial this week stretched far beyond Montgomery County, from a single crime scene to a vast network of interstate drug rings, federal investigations, wiretaps, confidential informants, and "snitching. " Luckenson Desrivieres, 25, has admitted that he stabbed to death two friends - Marc Winchell Estiverne, 23, and Estiverne's girlfriend, Shamara Hill, 26 - in the boardinghouse where they were staying. Prosecutors argued that the killing was premeditated, and presented a witness who said Desrivieres had talked about robbing and killing Estiverne over a debt.

Former coach Mike McQueary, who testified that he witnessed Jerry Sandusky raping a child in a Pennsylvania State University locker-room shower, might have been unduly influenced by overzealous investigators, Sandusky said in an interview broadcast on Today on Monday. "His story changed a lot," said Sandusky, 69, who is serving a 30- to 60-year jail term for his conviction last year on sexual-abuse charges. "I don't understand how anybody would have walked into that locker room from where he was and heard sounds, associated that was sex going on," he said before pausing to laugh.

Testimony in the Philadelphia murder trial of abortion doctor Kermit Gosnell came to a loud, angry halt this morning when a legal dispute erupted about the planned testimony of a prosecution toxicologist. Prosecutors want toxicologist Timothy Rohrig to interpret the amount of the powerful sedative Demerol found in the body of Karnamaya Mongar. Mongar, a 41-year-old Virginia woman, died Nov. 19, 2009 while undergoing an abortion at Gosnell's West Philadelphia clinic. Gosnell, 72, is charged with third-degree murder in Mongar's death, which prosecutors say was caused when Gosnell's untrained workers gave the diminutive woman multiple doses of Demerol and other drugs to anesthetize her. Prosecutors say Rohrig, chief toxicologist and director of the Sedgwick County, Kansas, Regional Forensic Science Center, would estimate the amount of Demerol in Mongar's body based on blood samples taken during her autopsy.

In a jail house interview broadcast on NBC's Today show Monday morning, Jerry Sandusky sought to discredit former coach Mike McQueary's testimony that he saw Sandusky raping a child in a Penn State football locker-room shower in 2002. "I think there's a lot of things that transpired," Sandusky said in the interview. "I think these investigators, the way they went about business, his story changed a lot. " Sandusky, 69, went on: "I don't understand how anybody would have walked into that locker room from where he was and heard sounds associated that was sex going on," he said, before pausing to laugh.

A former employee and patient who got abortions from Dr. Kermit Gosnell gave a Philadelphia jury Tuesday a graphic and sometimes grisly inside view of his West Philadelphia clinic. Adrienne Moton, 35, told the jury how she obtained two abortions from Gosnell as a teenager. She said she also lived with his family for a time before becoming a volunteer and then employee at Gosnell's Women's Medical Society. Though she had only a high school diploma, Moton described how Gosnell trained her to do ultrasound exams of patients, administer pre-surgical sedation, and assist in illegal late-term abortions.