‘Soap opera’ trial comes to close for accused Brooklyn Bridge Park murderer

Defense attorney: ‘This is not a Jerry Springer episode’

March 12, 2018 By Paul Frangipane Brooklyn Daily Eagle

Lamont Wright is on trial at Brooklyn Supreme Court for the murder of his ex-girlfriend, Michelle Marks. Photo courtesy of NYS Sex Offender Registry

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Closings arguments were given at Brooklyn Supreme Court on Monday in the trial of a 55-year-old registered sex offender accused of fatally shooting his ex-girlfriend after she left work near Pier 6 in Brooklyn Bridge Park.

With 15 priors, Lamont Wright sat before a female-majority jury as his attorney labeled prosecutors’ circumstantial proofs as “soap opera evidence.”

“This is not a Jerry Springer episode, this is a murder trial,” Robert Reuland told the jurors. “Where is the proof beyond a reasonable doubt that Lamont was even there?”

While Reuland said audio recordings and text messages of Wright fighting with his 23-year-old ex-girlfriend Michelle Marks show he had motive to kill her, it did not prove he was a murderer.

Prosecutors argued they proved that when Marks was leaving work at Fornino, a pizzeria at Pier 6 on June 6, 2016, Wright, having allegedly been stalking her, approached her in the dark.

“He’s got a gun. Call 911,” Marks told her new boyfriend Samuel Hall over the phone.

Hall testified at trial that he heard who he identified as Wright in the background saying, “I just want to talk.”

Wright then allegedly held the gun to Marks’ head and fatally shot her, causing her to collapse to the ground, cigarette still in hand, beside the B63 bus she regularly took home.

In her closing arguments, Assistant District Attorney Michelle Kaminsky painted a picture of multiple scenes of domestic quarrels between the couple in the weeks preceding the shooting.

Audio recordings of voicemails from Wright to Marks on May 15, 2016 show him pleading her in the middle of the night to let him into her apartment to get his belongings.

“You really treating me like a piece of s—t,” Wright can be heard saying while sitting outside her apartment.

He continued with, “I swear to God, I will go to jail tonight and I’ll spend the rest of my days in a jail cell,” before saying, “Next time you see me, don’t ask why, don’t ask no questions, just be prepared.”

“This defendant murdered Michelle Marks,” Kaminsky said, pointing to the salt-and-pepper-bearded man. “The defendant was in Brooklyn Bridge Park on June 6, 2016 and he carried through on this threat. He hunted Michelle down and he executed her.”

During two days of interrogation from the police, Wright denied his involvement, saying multiple times he was at home inside his East Flatbush apartment sleeping.

But locations of his cellphone that night pinned him to the same relative location as Marks about an hour before the shooting.

Charged with second-degree murder, weapon possession and stalking, Wright faces up to 25 years to life in prison if convicted of the top charge.