By Shayna Jacobs
DNAinfo Reporter/Producer
MANHATTAN SUPREME COURT — A man testified Tuesday he hustled a Long Island father who came to him looking to stage a murder-robbery in East Harlem.
Melvin Fleming, 55, admitted on the stand that took at least $2,000 in cash, jewelry and two switchblades he later pawned for money from Long Island motivational speaker Jeffrey Locker.
But Fleming was only pretending to going along with the plan, he testified at the trial of Kenneth Minor, 38, who is accused of actually following through with Locker's alleged request to murder him for money.
"I didn't kill him that's the main thing," Fleming said. "It happened, that was it."
Fleming said he had two meetings with Locker in which he accepted cash and discussed a plot to have Fleming shoot him in an East Harlem bus depot.
But Fleming insists he was just stringing Locker along. After their second meeting inside Locker's SUV he said he ran off with the cash and never looked back, after the second day of driving around with Locker in preparation for what Locker thought would be his carefully orchestrated execution.
"What happened when you got in the car?" Assistant District Attorney Peter Casolaro asked about Fleming's first meeting with Locker, which he said was days before Locker was actually killed by Minor.
"[Locker] informed me that he was looking for someone to make him dead, to kill him," Fleming said.
Fleming explained that he didn't have any intention to kill Locker, that he "sold him a dream to get a few bucks." He testified he was a addicted to drugs and alcohol and was often stealing for cash to get high.
"You got him good, I guess," defense attorney Daniel Gotlin said sarcastically during Fleming's testimony.
"Hey, that's all I wanted to do," Fleming said.
Minor is accused of stabbing the 52-year-old Locker seven times in the chest near the RFK-Triboro Bridge in July 2009.
Locker apparently set up the plan so his family could collect on his multi-million dollar life insurance policies.
Prosecutors, who called Fleming to the stand, have acknowledged that there is ample evidence that Locker was trying to kill himself, but said that Minor didn't have to agree to the plot.
They dispute Minor's claim that Locker lunged onto the knife as Minor held it steady. The medical examiner, who testified earlier this week, argued such a thing would be impossible.
Minor faces up to life in prison if convicted. He claims Locker threw himself onto a knife seven times while Minor held it steady.
Gotlin argues Minor was assisting in Locker's suicide, which is a defense for second-degree murder in New York State.
The trial will continue Monday with the first defense witness, a renowned forensic scientist named Cyril Wecht.
