A murder charge was dismissed Thursday against a 25-year- old man who admitted being an accessory after the fact in an Anaheim park shooting and was immediately sentenced to one year in jail and three years of formal probation.
Taking into account time already served, Ransom Lewis Cook of Westminster will be released from jail Thursday night, according to defense attorney Jacqueline Goodman.
Co-defendant Adam Jay Stone, 28, of Anaheim, still faces a murder charge with a sentence-enhancing firearm-use allegation. He is due in court Jan. 8 for a preliminary hearing.
Stone is charged with fatally shooting 29-year-old Alexander McMoore last Jan. 7 about 4:50 p.m. at Twila Reid Park, and Cook was accused of driving the getaway vehicle.
Goodman said she didn’t agree that Cook should have been considered an accessory because Stone allegedly handed her client the gun after the shooting and told him to hide it. Cook thought he was driving Stone home, not to a shooting, she said.
“I didn’t join in the plea because I think he was innocent,” Goodman said. “The difference of opinion is whether there was duress to relieve him of liability… I’m just of the opinion he did it because the (accused) murderer told him to do it.”
Senior Deputy District Attorney Steve McGreevy said Cook was an accessory because he did not come forward to tell authorities what he knew and gave the gun to someone else to hold onto.
Stone and Cook met in the Army reserves, but were not in the same company and were mainly acquaintances, Goodman said. On the day of the shooting, Stone showed up unexpectedly at Cook’s door and asked him for a ride home, she said.
“My client had no record whatsoever — he’s as straight as you get,” the defense attorney said.
Cook lost his job at Costco when he was jailed and his mother had to sell their home because of the loss of her son’s income, Goodman said. Now they’re planning to move to Nevada.
They lost a lot of friends in the neighborhood, as well, when the news broke of Cook’s arrest, Goodman said.
She praised McGreevy for reconsidering the murder charge against Cook.
“He really takes very seriously seeking actual justice, and that’s what he did in this case,” Goodman said.
— Wire reports