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Guilty of conspiracy to commit robbery and not guilty of aiding, inducing or causing robbery were the verdicts handed down by the jury hearing the case against Michael Alan Cavender.
Cavender, 33, of North Webster, took the stand in his own defense Wednesday in Kosciusko Circuit Court to deny his involvement in a Jan. 28, 1999, robbery of a bank deposit from a North Webster American Legion member.
Although Cavender admitted that Ray Skelton, 33, of Syracuse, talked to him on two occasions about committing the robbery, Cavender said he told Skelton that he wanted no part of it. He contends that Skelton and David Walter Hawthorne, 25, of Syracuse, set him up as an accomplice after the fact.
Police said Hawthorne was the one who wielded a gun when Russell Griffin was struck from behind and the money he was taking to the bank was stolen from him.
Cavender claims that he simply gave Skelton a ride from the Express Station in North Webster and didn't know that a robbery had just occurred until after he saw police cars while driving to Cavender's house.
Cavender testified that he had spent time with a friend that evening after returning from work and letting his dog out. When he returned home, he said, his dog wasn't there so he decided to go look for the animal and to get a newspaper at the gas station. While at the gas station, he decided to call his mother before she went to bed because he needed to talk to her and it was going on 10 p.m.
"As I was calling my mom ... Ray Skelton approached me and asked if I would do him a large favor," Cavender testified. "He asked if I would take him to Goshen and I told him I would."
"Mike Cavender would like you to believe that he was inadvertently on the telephone at the scene and Ray Skelton needed a ride to Goshen," Prosecutor Chuck Waggoner said during his final argument.
Cavender said he now regrets giving Skelton a ride. Before heading to Goshen, Cavender said, Skelton wanted to stop at Cavender's house to use the telephone. When they pulled into the driveway there, Cavender said, Hawthorne's car was there and Hawthorne was standing on the porch. Cavender said that he knew then that the robbery had taken place and let the two men into his house, where they apparently divvied up the money before Hawthorne left and Cavender continued the trip with Skelton to Goshen. However, that trip ended in Milford when a police officer stopped the vehicle because it was described as one seen leaving the scene of the crime.
Although claiming he didn't tell police anything while Skelton was with him because he was in fear, Cavender also admitted that he later continued to lie when he was alone with police.
"You regret today giving Ray Skelton a ride," Waggoner said during cross examination of the defendant. "You regret today not telling the truth. Do you also regret today that you participated in an armed robbery?" After a pause, Cavender replied: "No, because I didn't."
During that part of the testimony, Griffin - who moved to North Webster in 1994 from the Chicago area to escape crime - clenched his fist in a gesture of victory, leaned to the man sitting next to him and whispered, "He just hung himself."
During closing arguments defense attorney David Kolbe told jurors that there was reasonable doubt concerning Cavender "aiding, inducing or causing" the robbery, but he more or less admitted his client's guilt of the conspiracy charge.
"He (Cavender) gave Ray Skelton a ride," Kolbe said. "He knew Ray Skelton did it - later. You can't take that knowledge retrospectively ... The conspiracy would hold. That's your case if you want to believe those guys."
"The state's star witnesses are liars," Kolbe said, referring to Skelton and Hawthorne, who were given use immunity to testify at Cavender's trial because charges are pending against them in the same crime. Kolbe went as far to discredit Skelton by saying "he's too dumb to be a good liar."
The seven-woman, five-man jury deliberated just two hours before finding Cavender guilty of the conspiracy charge and acquitting him of the charge of aiding, inducing or causing a robbery.
Because the charge on which Cavender was convicted is a Class B felony offense, Judge Rex Reed remanded Cavender to custody to await sentencing.
A Class B felony is punishable by a prison term of six to 20 years and a fine up to $10,000.
