MARKHASEV GUILTY IN COSBY MURDER; JURY TAKES JUST HOURS TO CONVICT.

Byline: Linda Deutsch Associated Press 

A young man with a history of gang affiliations was found guilty Tuesday in the slaying of Bill Cosby's only son, Ennis, as he changed a flat tire on a dark and lonely road last year.

Several members of the Cosby family, including two of the victim's sisters, Erika and Erinn, wept and hugged as the verdicts were read. The entertainer and his wife were not in the courtroom.

Mikail Markhasev, a 19-year-old Ukrainian immigrant, also was convicted of attempting to rob Cosby and using a firearm in the commission of attempted robbery.

The jury's finding on all counts automatically mandates a life prison term with no possibility of parole. Formal sentencing was scheduled for Aug. 11.

``The Cosby family is satisfied with the judicial process that has led to this conviction,'' said Cosby spokesman David Brokaw. ``They have no comment on the sentencing.''

Prosecutors had opted not to seek the death penalty, but did not give a reason. The defendant's age was believed to be a major consideration.

Included in the family group in court was Phil Caputo, the man who played basketball with Ennis Cosby hours before he was killed. Caputo had tears in his eyes as he heard the word ``guilty.''

Markhasev's family never made it to the courtroom in time to hear the verdicts. Markhasev stood stone-faced, staring at the jury as the verdicts were read.

Defense attorney Henry Hall said of his client's reaction to the life sentence: ``He's 19 years old and it doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out how he feels about that,'' Hall said.

He blamed the media rather than the celebrity of the Cosby family for the conviction.

Cosby, 27, a vacationing graduate student from Columbia University, was fatally shot Jan. 16, 1997, while changing a flat tire on a dark road in the Sepulveda Pass. Markhasev was arrested nearly two months later.

The victim was a child of privilege who overcame the adversity of learning problems and was on the brink of receiving his master's degree in special education.

His father, eloquent in his grief, summed up his loss simply after the shooting: ``He was my hero.''

Cosby was shot on his way to meet a new acquaintance, Stephanie Crane, who would testify that Cosby called and said he had a flat. She offered to help, drove to his location and used her car's headlights to illuminate his mother's Mercedes-Benz while he changed the tire.

Nearby, three people had stopped their car near a public telephone, the prosecutor said; one of them was Markhasev, who had served time in a juvenile correctional facility.

Witness testimony

Crane remembered only that she was sitting in her Jaguar when a young man approached.

``All of a sudden a man's face appeared in my window,'' she testified. ``He said, Open your door or I'll shoot.''

The witness said she pulled forward, thinking that if she shined her car's lights on the man he would be scared away.

``When I turned around I couldn't see Ennis. I started screaming, Ennis! Ennis! . . . Then I saw this person in the distance running. I looked down and I saw Ennis on the ground.''

Who was the man who ran away? Crane couldn't tell. She failed to pick Markhasev out of a police lineup.

Crane was the prosecution's only eyewitness.

Quick verdict

The jury, which heard testimony over two weeks, spent less than six hours talking over the case before accepting the prosecution's argument that Markhasev had been convicted by his own words.

``The whole thing was open and shut, or at least close to that. The evidence was there loud and clear,'' said juror Joseph Burnett Vagner, 78.

Prosecutor Anne Ingalls had used a series of jailhouse letters she said were written by the defendant, and a profanity-laced recorded phone conversation in which Markhasev sounded frantic and concerned that a friend was mentioning Cosby's name.

The prosecution also relied on a single tiny hair linked to the defendant by DNA testing. The hair was found in a knit cap wrapped around the gun identified as the murder weapon.

Ingalls had unsuccessfully lobbied the judge to keep jurors' names secret in the case, saying the defendant was a ``made'' member of the Mexican Mafia and that jurors could be subject to retaliation. A ``made'' member is one who is formally initiated into a gang.

The defense claimed that police arrested the wrong man, that the letters were forged and the phone conversation was the prattling of a teen-ager discussing a dope deal.

The case went to the jury Monday after Bill Cosby made his first court appearance on the last day of arguments. He had stayed away from the trial until then, saying he wanted to preserve the dignity of the proceeding.

Defense attorneys attacked the testimony of informant Christopher So, who led police to where the gun was found and said he heard Markhasev tell another friend: ``I shot a n-----. It's all over the news. It's big.''

The defense attorneys said jurors should not accept the word of a convicted felon who sold his story to the National Enquirer.

Ingalls had said that Markhasev essentially convicted himself with letters he wrote in jail referring to details of the crime.

``The letters are everything in this case,'' Ingalls said, and went on to read statements such as: ``It was a robbery gone bad.''

Outside the courthouse, District Attorney Gil Garcetti said: ``We are pleased that justice was done in this case, we are pleased for the Cosby family.''

CAPTION(S):

3 Photos

Photo: (1--Color) Mikail Markhasev, 19, grins defiantly after his conviction Tuesday of the murder of Ennis Cosby.

Michael J. Caulfield/Associated Press

(2--Color) ENNIS COSBY

Slain in January 1997

(3) Mikail Markhasev sits between attorneys Harriet Hawkins, left, and Henry Hall as the guilty verdict is read Tuesday in Santa Monica.

Susan Sterner/Associated Press