His Just Reward?

By Jodie Morse

The courtroom drama was swift and efficient. After a two-week murder trial, jurors deliberated for less than six hours and emerged with a guilty verdict, putting a killer behind bars for life. Case closed. Thus was textbook justice meted out last week in Los Angeles, when jurors convicted Mikail Markhasev, 19, of fatally shooting Ennis Cosby, venerable entertainer Bill's only son, while he was changing a flat tire on Jan. 16, 1997. The Cosby family issued a brief statement saying it was "satisfied" with the outcome. Los Angeles district attorney Gil Garcetti stood outside the Santa Monica courthouse beaming and showering kudos on his staff for scoring a high-profile conviction.

But the scene that played out two days later at a nearby hotel was a little less by the book. Flanked by armed guards, Christopher So, the man who led Los Angeles police to Markhasev, took center stage and pocketed a $100,000 reward for helping solve the case. The check was issued by the National Enquirer, which had posted the hefty reward for information leading to the arrest and conviction of Cosby's killer. For his payday, the tabloid had generously outfitted So in a baseball cap sporting the cheeky logo ENQUIRING MINDS.

In the end the most surprising thing about the trial was not that a case involving celebrities was speedily tried in Los Angeles sans a media circus or that a stone-faced and silent Bill Cosby stole the show with a brief appearance at closing arguments. What was most notable about the trial was that it might not have taken place at all were it not for the efforts (and deep pockets) of the nation's most widely read supermarket tabloid. The trial's two key pieces of evidence, the murder weapon and a series of incriminating jailhouse letters written by Markhasev, were both unearthed with the help of the Enquirer. After reading about the reward, So called the tabloid's Ennis Cosby hot line with a tip that led the L.A.P.D. to the discarded .38-cal. gun, wrapped in a knit cap that contained a strand of Markhasev's hair. Later the Enquirer obtained (through sources it won't reveal) copies of Markhasev's jailhouse letters, in which he virtually confessed to the crime.

The prosecution presented the case as a badly bungled robbery, arguing that Markhasev and two friends spotted Cosby on the roadside and Markhasev killed him. In opening arguments the defense suggested that Cosby was actually shot by one of Markhasev's companions, Eli Zakaria. But the mistaken-identity theory went nowhere, and Zakaria was never called to the stand.

Christopher So was a key, if troubling, witness. A convicted embezzler and wife beater, he had to be dragged into the courthouse clad in slippers and shorts. Once there, though, he earned his keep, testifying that he had overheard Markhasev say, "I shot a n_____. It's big." In cross-examination public defender Henry Hall grilled So about his pending reward, asking if he understood he might become rich by cooperating. So answered, "That did cross my mind."

It has crossed the minds of many legal experts as well. In an era when tabloids compete for scoops with their checkbooks, telling all to a tabloid is usually a surefire credibility killer. The O.J. Simpson prosecutors, for example, had to strike at least one promising witness who was discovered to have taken money from a tabloid TV show. In the Cosby case, however, the Enquirer did more than just buy a scoop; it offered a reward for information leading to a conviction. "The key concern is that people may fabricate evidence to collect rewards. Then innocent people can be convicted," warns U.S.C. law professor Erwin Chemerinsky. "But if the information helps to get somebody who is guilty, how can we question it?"

"Rewards bring people out of the woodwork who would not normally come forward," says UCLA law professor and former public defender Peter Arenella. "Some of them have valuable information; some do not. The Cosby case suggests that under appropriate circumstances such information will be credited." Credit came to So in the form of a check blown up poster-size to look like the jackpot in a Publishers Clearing House commercial. He pledged to donate part of the money to the Ennis William Cosby Foundation. "I'm not an angel," he said. "But I'm not as bad as many people like to think."

--Reported by Andrea Sachs/New York and James Willwerth/Los Angeles

With reporting by Andrea Sachs/New York and James Willwerth/Los Angeles