By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — Suburban dad Jeffrey Locker hired streetwise Kenneth Minor to end his life in a parked SUV on a East Harlem side street so it would look like just another murder and robbery in a crime-ridden neighborhood, prosecutors said.
It was all, prosecutors say, part of a scheme Locker, motivational speaker, concocted so his family could cash on millions in life insurance claims.
"The entire purpose of the plan was to support his family," Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro told jurors in his opening statement Thursday at Minor's murder trial in Manhattan Supreme Court.
"This plan was misguided to say the least," he said.
But Minor, who accepted Locker's credit card and PIN number as compensation for fatally stabbing Locker while he was tied up in his SUV, is still a cold-blooded murderer under the law, Casolaro said.
"The evidence is going to show that [Minor] was the actual killer, that he held the knife in his hand and he was the person that caused [Locker] to die," Casolaro argued. "Being paid to kill another person even if that person is [the one paying you] makes you nothing more than a contract killer and a murderer."
Minor, 38, has a history of criminal convictions including robberies and assaults.
The body of 52-year-old Locker was found bruised and bloodied, his hands tied up behind his back inside his vehicle, parked near the RFK-Triboro Bridge, on July 16, 2009.
Minor is charged with second-degree murder for allegedly killing Locker. He had accumulated substantial debt and had defaulted on his mortgage payments, prosecutors said.
Minor allegedly slashed Locker in the chest seven times, left him to bleed to death in the driver's side seat then used Locker's ATM card at a bodgea, laundromat and elsewhere to withdraw about $1,000.
Casolaro said Locker's death was not an act of pity on behalf of Minor, who was seeking to gain from it.
He called Locker "a foolish, dishonest, pathetic man" but added that Minor "is a vicious and callous one."
Minor's attorney, Daniel Gotlin, has argued Minor is not a killer but a victim of Locker's selfish plan to set up his family for a large and illegal profit.
"He didn't go to Park Avenue, he didn't go to Sutton Place and he didn't go to Fifth Avenue," Gotlin said. "He went to the ghetto...and he did it more than once until he could find the right sucker to help him end his life."
Gotlin said assisted suicide is a legal defense to murder in New York State. Manslaughter would have been the appropriate charge, he has said in the past.
Testimony in Minor's trial began late Thursday morning with crime scene evidence.
