(Cliff’s Notes here; update below.)

Cuadra’s boyfriend Joseph Kerekes, who pled guilty last month and faces a life sentence, was expected to testify in Cuadra’s defense and possibly exonerate Cuadra of some guilt. Cuadra’s attorneys, in fact, seemed to have built their defense on the idea that Kerekes was the more controlling, dominant person in the relationship, and that he was more likely to have physically committed the murder. 

But to the surprise of many in the courtroom, as the Wilkes-Barre based Times-Leader reports, Kerekes took the stand only briefly today to recant any previous statements he made to Cuadra’s defense attorney:

“I’ve been thinking a lot about my parents, I think it will destroy them to say something that I didn’t do,” Kerekes said. “What I told you (D’Andrea) is untrue.”

Whatever Kerekes told D’Andrea during their few meetings wasn’t disclosed.

Kerekes was immediately escorted out of the courtroom.

Cuadra perhaps already knew that Joe wasn’t coming to his defense, because the two could not look at each other as Kerekes took the stand. When Kerekes was escorted out of the courtroom, Harlow’s mother shouted at him: “You stole my son!”

UPDATE:

Going against his lawyers’ advice, Cuadra took the stand in his own defense and described an abusive childhood and a difficult coming-out process through sobs and tears. He then told his own version of the events leading to rival porn producer Bryan Kocis’ murder. Cuadra said that he was enjoying a friendly visit with Kocis at the porn producer’s home when then-boyfriend Kerekes burst in unannounced and attacked Kocis while Cuadra looked on in shock.

Cuadra said he ran outside the house and waited in the rental car after Kerekes pulled out a knife and slashed Kocis’ throat. Cuadra insisted that he wanted to go to investigators, but Kerekes was very controlling: “Joseph wouldn’t let me,” Cuadra said. “I can’t even go to the store to buy toilet paper without him.”

In an interesting note, one blogger received the following tip from a source inside the courtroom: While Harlow’s tears appeared to be genuine at the beginning of his testimony, said the source, “it appeared that for the most part he was crying ‘crocodile tears,’ all the while trying to muster the real thing.” The source assumed that for the jury, “it came across as an act.”

 

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Harlow Cuadra Thinks His Ass Looks Guilty in Those Jeans
Everything You Maybe Never Wanted to Know About Harlow Cuadra And Didn’t Ask
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Casting Special: The Kocis Murder Movie
Sidebar: Cliff’s Notes on The Bryan Kocis Murder

Trial Blog (Harlow & Joe on Trial)
Day 11 of Cuadra Trial (Times-Leader)