Latest / Both Things Are True Crime / Alishah Pointer: The Sentences Don't Match Who Pulled the Trigger | Leverage
Transcript
- alishah pointer edited: Photo goes up on Instagram, and in it is a 22-year-old woman being held at gunpoint. And it's not a threat to her. She's already caught, it's a message to somebody else, and that message is come out, or if this is what happens to her. The woman in that photo is Alicia Pointer. She's not the person they want, she's the person they think can get them the person they want. She is leveraged. And the man they're trying to reach never comes. Days later, Alicia is found in the basement of a burnt-out house on Savannah Avenue. Six people are charged with killing her. Two of them fired the guns that killed her. One of them pulled a trigger on a gun that did not go off. Three of them never fired at all. And when it's over four years later, the sentences they don't line up with who pulled a trigger. One of the people Who never fired will die in prison. One of the people who did pull a trigger has a release date. And that's not a mistake. That is actually how the law is built. And by the end of this, I think you're gonna be about as mad at about it as I am, okay? And also understand exactly why it works that way. But as you guys always know, her first. Let's talk about it. Alicia Pointer was 22. She lived in East Cleveland and she has a twin. Her sister, Aaliyah, called her the first week her best friend. Four years later in court, she called her mother half. And her mother, at the sentencing, she described her the way mothers do when they've had four years to find their words. The most beautiful smile. An even bigger laugh. And then the sentence, that is the reason I'm doing this episode. They robbed her of a promising future. She never got the chance to have children or get married. And her oldest said, her oldest sister said that as the oldest, you're always compelled to protect your siblings. And she couldn't. When the city tore down the house Alicia was found in less than two weeks later, her aunt Catherine told the family to come and wear their shirts because this is the reason why we're here, she said, because of my niece. That is close to what the public record has about who Alicia was. Was a twin, a smile, a laugh, a family that showed up in their shirts for her to watch a house come down. And I wish there were more. But I'm gonna keep her at the center of this anyway because the people who killed her decided she did not count as a person in her own right, and I'm not about to agree with them, period. So in November the second, 2021, Tuesday in Cleveland, a man named Abnias, I cannot pronounce his name. Kumcom Zion, he is shot and killed. And I do think he's important because he's a person, and his death was a real loss to the people who loved him. Police said he was a relative of a man named Hakeem Al-Shamo. That shared last name is the reason for everything that is about to happen next. So the police started working his death, right? And a group of people who knew him decide that they're not about to wait for the police. They're going to find out who did it themselves. And according to the appeals court summary of what the state alleged, they settled on a man they believe was involved. Now, I'm not gonna not about to name him, okay? He's never been charged with anything in his death. Nothing in any court record I read has ever said he's anything to do with it. What matters is that they could not find him. But they knew who his girlfriend was. The whole reason Alicia Pointer was taken, not because of anything she did, but because of who she was dating. Afterwards, police said that they were not even sure she knew anything about the shooting at all. She was not A suspect in their heads she was away to get to one. So then Tues Thursday, November 4th, two days after A I N J S is killed, four of the six get into a car. Hakeem Al Shamo, Portia Williams, Destiny Henderson, and Nathaniel Polk Jr. They drive to a house near Glenmont and Superior in East Cleveland. And then there at gunpoint, they force two other women into the car, not Alicia, two women. Who knew where to find her? And the state says that Portia Williams was the one holding the gun for that part. So those two women, they lead them to Alicia. And Alicia gets into the car, lured in, according to the police, by someone she knew. The other two women are let go. I'm not naming them either. They were kidnapped at gunpoint and made to lead armed people to a friend. And they have to live with that. They did nothing wrong. But this is the first piece of law that is already coming into the room, even if nobody in that car is thinking about it. Every One of those four is now committing a kidnapping. Two kidnappings already, and the third is Alicia. And in Ohio, kidnapping is one of the short list of crimes that turns any death that happens during it into the highest state the charge has. But I'm gonna come back to that right now. The car is going to go to Portia Williams' house. So they take Alicia to Portia Williams' home, right? And they keep her there through the night of November the fourth and into the next day. more than 20 hours and two more people arrive while she's there. I don't like saying the lady's name. Britney Smith and Anthony Bryan. Nathaniel Polk, he leaves. That detail, who walked in and who walked out, is going to end up deciding years of somebody's life. So I want you to have that information now. And also please note I really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really, really I don't like that Britney lady. Okay. Britney Smith, I do not like her. Okay. But I'll get into that later. Maybe I won't. I don't know. But what happens in that house, the state said, was torture. Shomo, Smith, and Brian are the three accused of beating her to get information about their loved one's death. Information police wasn't even sure she had. They bound her face with tape. Investigators later recovered the roll of tape with Brittany Smith's fingerprint on it. But that is as far as I'm gonna go into that house. You do not need to. No more to understand what was done to her, and I don't think she needs it repeated it. that's just not my channel. Okay, you guys know that. But at some point in those 20 hours, somebody takes a photo of Alicia at gunpoint, and then it goes up on Instagram, according to the state, to basically draw her boyfriend out of hiding. And think about what that means, right? A group of people are about to commit a murder, make a public record of the kidnapping with their own phones on a platform that keeps everything. That's literally the Part that police want to scream. Okay. But he doesn't come. The bait doesn't work. And the people holding her have to decide what to do with the woman they have now beaten for most of a day, who has seen all of their faces and who may never have had what they are after. So Shomo, he he leaves, right? Four of them: Destiny Henderson, Britney Smith, Portia Williams, and Anthony Bryant. They all put Alicia in a vehicle and drive her to an abandoned house on the 1400 block of Savannah Avenue. The house had burned. The city had already tagged it for demolition. And so in that house, the state says Portia Williams and Anthony Bryant fired, more than once each. The appeals court summary says two guns. The shell casings had Bryant's DNA on them. And Destiny Henderson, she pulled a trigger too, but the gun did not fire. So that is three people who tried to shoot her and two whose guns went off. So the sentences are going to scramble that. So I think it's worth saying that plainly now. So Alicia's family, they report her missing on November the fifth. Days later, on a trip, on a tip, East Cleveland police, they go to the house on Savannah Avenue and they find her in the basement. And the medical examiner rules it a homicide, gunshot wounds. And so then the rest they start coming fast. Within the week, Williams, Henderson, Polk, Smith, and Bryant are all in custody. And Hakeem Ali Shamo is being looked for, and all six are charged. And less than two weeks after she was found on a Saturday. The city of East Cleveland tears the house down, and her family stands in the shirts in the street for her, and you watch it go down. So here's the law. At the exact point where it starts to matter, which is the indictment. Because a lot of people, when I hear six people are charged with aggravated murder and only two of them fired, you may think that the prosecutors are overcharging, but they're not. They're reading one statue. So Ohio's criminal code, they live in the Ohio Revised Code. So First code of the section. So I'm gonna do this once. The number is the section, and the letters and numbers and parentheses after it are the subsection. Section sub and sometimes sub of a sub. That's all we basically need. So section 2923.03 is complicity. And it says that if you with the same state of mind, the crime requires, solicit it, aid it, abetted, or conspire to commit it, you are guilty of complicity. And then sub F, that part matters the most. A person guilty of complicity is prosecuted and punished as if you were the principal offender, as if you were the one who did it. So now let's talk about the crime. Okay. Section 2903.01 is aggravated murder, which is the most serious homicide charge in Ohio. One way to commit it is planning it out. Prior calculation design, we've talked about that before. Another way, and sub B is purposely causing someone else's death while you are committing certain other felonies. Kidnapping is on that list. So let's put those two together, right? If you helped kidnap Alicia and you shared the purpose that she died, the law doesn't care whose finger is on the trigger. Forcing her into the car, driving it, and holding her in the house, taping her face under complicity, that is the same as firing. But there's one limit, and it's a real one. Just being there is not enough. Ohio courts. Have said for a long time that mere presence at a crime is not aiding and abetting. You have to actually help and share the purpose. And that is a sentence to carry out of this one. In Ohio, if you help, you did it. And there's a level below it, which is going to matter next thing we talk about. So section 2903.04, involuntary manslaughter. That is when someone dies as a result of you committing a felony, whether you meant it or not for anybody to die. No purpose to kill is required. You are committing a felony here, kidnapping, and a death came out of it. So aggravated murder is life, with the only question being whether and when parole is possible. Involuntary manslaughter in a case like this is years. So same house, same night, same body, very different sentences. And the line between them is not the trigger, it's the purpose. And what a jury can be convinced of about what was in your head. So early 2023, this is about a year after the arrest, two of the six walk into court and they plead guilty. Portia Williams, who one of the two whose guns went off, she pleads guilty to aggravated murder with a firearm specification, plus kidnapping and conspiracy to commit kidnapping. Her agreed sentence is life with a chance of parole after 23 years. Then Destiny Henderson, who pulled the trigger on the gun that did not fire, she pleads guilty to involuntary manslaughter, kidnapping, and conspiracy, and her aggravated murder charge is taken off the table. And both. Deals come with the same condition that they testify against the others. Nathaniel Polk Jr., he's the one who left the house before the beating started. He also takes a plea to involuntary manslaughter and he agrees to testify too. So here's why prosecutors make deals like this. Cause I want to be fair to them before I'm mad at them. Six people were in and out of that house and that car. Nobody else saw what happened inside. So the two women who were let go saw the start. But not the end. The only people who can tell a jury who taped your face, hit her, who did what, who carried the guns into Savannah Avenue are the people who did it. So you have to, in a sense, buy the inside of the room. And the price is a lower charge for someone who wants it. That's just what it is. And that's really just how a person who pulled a trigger ends up with involuntary manslaughter. Not because the law thinks pulling a trigger on a gun that jams is less than taping someone's face, but because Of when she sat down with prosecutors, what she could give them. So now we're in March 2023, okay? March 10th, my born day. The other three, Anthony Bryant, Brittany Smith, and Hakeem Ali Shamo, they go to trial together in I cannot pronounce the name County in front of Judge John J. Russo and jury selection takes about a week. And then on the night of March 10th, my born day, the Judge Bailiff sends a text. Not to everyone. But to the prosecutors. They want to know whether the witnesses before Portia Williams were going to tie Britney Smith into the conspiracy. And now the prosecutor's answer is yes. And I respect this a lot. Yes, I do. He says we cannot answer that over text. If he wants anything from us, he needs access in court. So then the prosecutor emails every defense lawyer in the case and told them it had happened. Which this is called an ex parte communication, which basically just means one side talking to the court without the other side there. And it's a thing that's just simply not allowed. So the court declares a mistrial and Judge Russo recuses himself. And now the defense has a real argument and it's a big one double jeopardy. Because the fifth amendment says you cannot be tried twice for the same crime. If the system blew up the first trial, they argued you don't get a second one. And that rule comes on down from the US Supreme Court in Oregon, Oregon versus Kennedy. Volume reporter page. So the number before the book is the volume as I understand it. The book is the reporter. The number after is the page. So Kennedy is 456 US 667 from 1982. I'm never gonna stop doing this, you guys, because I want to learn. So sorry. But the general rule is that a mistrial does not stop a retrial. The exception is when the government's misconduct was intended to provoke the defendant. into asking for one. So if you're golding on purpose short of that, nah, the state gets to try again. So the Ohio 8th District Court of Appeals took it up. State versus Smith. 24 Ohio 2380 58. Yes. Let me say that one time. 224 Ohio 23 58. Ohio CISIS owns cases that way. So they do it the year, the way the year state number. So June 20th, 2024, the court says no. Nobody's claiming the prosecutor did anything wrong. The prosecutor is the one who reported it. And there was no showing that the bailiff's text was meant to provoke a mistrial or to help the state. So a retrial is allowed. One text from one bailiff and Alicia's family waited more than two more years. So the case goes to a new judge, Molly Ann Murphy of the County. Court of Common pleas. I cannot pronounce the county's name, you guys. I'm sorry. Kuwaka. See? Didn't want to try. but it takes until the fall of 2025 to get it back in front of a jury. Okay. So Thursday, October 7th, 2025, Brittany Smith, she is now in the middle of her own draw trial jury, jury trial. Cannot stand this lady. And partway, she stops the trial and she pleased guilty. Aggravated murder, conspiracy to commit the woman whose fingerprint was on the tape. And then October 20th. 2025, Anthony Bryant and Hakeem Ali Shamo, they go to trial together. So two years and seven months after the bailiff's text, almost four years after Savannah Avenue, and the jury convicts them both. Aggravated murder, felonious assault, kidnapping, conspiracy for Shamo having also having a weapon while under disability, which in Ohio means he was legally barred from having a gun at all. So then now we get to Wednesday, January 7, 2026. Sentencing for the three who went to trial. Alicia's twin stands up and she says, Losing my twin sister is a loss that cannot be measured or repaired. My other half, my best friend. And she tells the court that she has PTSD and she has not been able to recover for it. And her mother talks about her smile and her laugh and how they robbed her of a promising future and how she never got the chance to have children get married. And she says she can't believe she's gone. And Judge Murphy says, I cannot emphasize enough the torture she experienced. By the individual. Britney Smith Smith speaks. She's carrying a Bible. She apologizes to the family. Hakeem Al-Shamo, he doesn't speak. Anthony Bryant, he does not speak, but his family does. And they ask the judge for mercy and they remind her that he's 18. So the sentences that day: Anthony Bryant, he gets life without parole plus three years. Hakeem Al-Shamo, life without parole, plus 25 years. And I could be saying his name wrong too, but I don't care. Britney Smith, life with the chance at parole after 41 years. And then Friday, January 9th, 2026, the three who took the deals, Portia Williams, life parole possible after 23 years. That's a thought. Nathaniel Polk Jr., 23 to 28 years. Destiny Henderson, 25 to 30 years. So the ranges on Polk and Henderson apparently they come from an Ohio law called Reagan Tokes. So instead of one number, the judge gives a minimum and a maximum. In the prison sentence, they decide where in that range you get out, basically based on how you behave inside. If you ever want to watch some parole type of revocation hearings or anything like that. There's a channel called Mandu, M-A-N-D-O-O. It's a really good channel. He actually follows people throughout the whole entire system, and breaks down like their charges and the case and all that type of stuff after the parole hearing. But the prosecutor Michael O'Malley, he gives each one of them, he says each one of them deserves every day of their lengthy sentence, and we agree. But I just want to put it all on one screen if you're watching with me for the video version. Because I think this is the whole episode, right? Anthony Bryant fired, Life Without Parole. Portia Williams fired life with parole possible after twenty-three. Destiny Henderson pulled a trigger, the gun did not go off, twenty-five to thirty years. Hakeem Al Shamo, never fired. He had never left before he actually left before Savannah Avenue, life without parole. Brittany Smith, never fired. Life, parole possible, after 41. Nathaniel Polk Jr. never fired and left the before the beating, twenty-three to twenty-eight. When you read it top to bottom, I feel like you can see the two things deciding it. And I don't think either one is the trigger. Because I think the first is complicity, right? Shomo never fired at her, right? But he got the same sentence as the man whose DNA was on the casings. Because under section 29, 23.05, I believe it was, the man whose rel was it. Yeah, that is already one. The man whose relatives' death this was all about, who the state said. He beat her for information. He did it as much as anyone. So why his little cowardly self thought he was doing something when he left before he had them kill her? You didn't. And the second is the deal because the two people who got numbers instead of life sentences are one two of the three who sat down with the prosecutors early on. And one of them, they tried to shoot her. And the one in the middle, Portia Williams, she fired and took a deal and still got life. And her deal brought her a parole date. It didn't really buy her a lower charge. Henderson's deal brought her a lower charge. So the law did exactly what it said it would do. If you help, you did it. And then the prosecutors did exactly what prosecutors do, which is decide how much of that law to trade for testimony. Y'all know I love this part because this part is me. If you're on the audio version, you don't get to see my screen. This part is me. This case is so sad. It's so freaking tragic. And it's so stupid. Stupid on the part of every single person who did it because nobody's death was avenge. That's something I cannot get over, okay? Y'all was doing this all for someone you said you love who died. But you never found the person you were looking for. You never got an answer. All you did was take another 22-year-old out of the world and put six more people in prison. The one you love is still gone. Now Alicia's gone as well. And that's not revenge, that's just adding a body. And you did on camera, you posted evidence of the kidnapping on Instagram to draw somebody out. Listen, there's a type of person, and as I always say it, type does not name anybody, so I can say what I want to say. But there's a type of person who thinks that the street rules they learned online are the real rules, and that the actual law is something that happens to other people. Every one of y'all found out in that courtroom that the actual law was the only one that counted. And listen, I hated all the nasty people in this case. I'm gonna say it like that, because that's how I feel about it. I cannot they caught me, I think, is a channel. Very good channel, highly recommend them. I think it's fun. He doesn't say a lot, but he's funny to me. I love like when he like skips past the rights being read, he's like the rights are read. They caught me has all of the interrogation footage. In fact, I will be linking they caught me down below in in the comment section or description, however this works. I will be linking that and I bought y'all go watch it. Because you're gonna hate him too. That's just how I feel. You have one, I think it's Brittany, and she's playing a hood mama. And the guy Shomo is actually her baby daddy. And she was saying that this was her son. You don't have a you don't have a child with your son. You weirdo. And she calls all these grown people who are just in the wild of the world, also her kids, and it just all felt so inappropriate. I do not like her. And then there's another one who's all acting hard because the man she had a baby with got shot. So now everybody has to just do something about it. And then in the interrogation. They're just sitting there playing coy, they all didn't spend a day in that house torturing this girl for nothing. And listen, I'm not gonna put name on those because the record I read, it does not lay out whose is who. And I'm not going to get a relationship wrong on air, but I just watch how these people carried themselves, and it was all just foul. And another part that makes me mad in the other direction. Destiny Henderson pulled a trigger. The gun did not fire. That is the only reason that trigger did not do. What the others did. And she has a release date. And I understand the deal. I explained the deal. I probably wouldn't made the same deal if I was the prosecutor. But I still hate it, okay? I understand the prosecutor need it. Somebody will tell a jury what happened in that house, but I still hate it. You guys know that, okay? So as I always do, two truths. I'm not gonna make them agree. Maybe one day we'll come on here and they will agree. And I'll be like, yay! Complicity is right. Every person who helped take Alicia, who hurt her, drove her to that house, and killed her, you're all complicit, and the law is right to say so. A man who never fired at her is serving life without parole, and he should be. In the same law, in the hands of the people who have to win the case, let one of the people who tried to shoot her, they trade her all the way down to manslaughter. Not because she did less, but because she agreed to testify. But I believe if you help, you did it. But also, what you did is also what I guess you can trade. And I kinda hate that. But both things are true, aren't they? Alicia Pointer, 22, from East Cleveland, a twin. Beautiful black woman. Beautiful black woman. If you a black girl, if you a black girl, if you a black girl, hey. Beautiful black woman, just beautiful. A twin, the other half of her sister, the most beautiful smile her mother said, and an even bigger laugh, and she was taken away because of who she loved by people who were never gonna get what they wanted from her, and who did it anyway. Alicia Pointer.