Cuadra linked to victim

WILKES-BARRE – Justin Hensley said he was out of work in April 2005 when Joseph Kerekes offered him a job as an escort for Norfolk Male Escorts in Virginia.

Hensley then began performing with Kerekes’ partner, Harlow Cuadra, in gay pornographic films and moved in with the two in July 2005 to help operate their Web sites.

“I grew to be a friend of Cuadra because he took care of me,” Hensley testified Wednesday during the second day of Cuadra’s capital murder trial before Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr.

Cuadra, 27, is charged with killing rival pornographic movie producer Bryan Kocis, 44, at Kocis’ Midland Drive, Dallas Township, home on Jan. 24, 2007. Kerekes pleaded guilty in December to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Cuadra’s lawyers, Joseph D’Andrea and Paul Walker, are suggesting to the jury that three other people had more to gain from Kocis’ death, focusing on Kerekes.

Hensley, called to testify by assistant district attorneys Michael Melnick, Shannon Crake and Allyson Kacmanski, said Kerekes was more dominant in the relationship with Cuadra. Hensley quit when Kerekes fired several shots from a handgun during a fight with Cuadra in their residence.

“They wanted me to stay there and work all the time and not have a social life,” Hensley testified. “I was only allowed to leave on the weekends, and if I went out for a sandwich, I had to come right back.”

Hensley said the escort business earned $225 per hour with each client, and up to $10,000 a week. He said among escort clients were a U.S. senator, government contractors with the U.S. military and physicians.

Hensley said Cuadra and Kerekes produced mostly amateur pornographic movies they sold on their Web sites, and believed that if they filmed with gay pornographic movie star Sean Lockhart, they would rise to mainstream pornography and “profit.”

“(Cuadra and Kerekes) talked about working with Lockhart for a year,” Hensley testified. “Lockhart was in some very well-known titles … they would definitely profit a lot of money.”

“The only statements I heard about Cobra Video was that it was their main rival; Mr. Cuadra said that,” Hensley said.

After Cuadra and Kerekes met Lockhart and his business manager, Grant Roy, at an adult video news award ceremony in Las Vegas, Nev., in mid-January 2007, Hensley said they “were really excited to get (Lockhart) down there to work.”

Several representatives from Internet service providers testified Wednesday that e-mails were traced from Kocis’ Cobra Video account to computers registered to Cuadra.

D’Andrea and Walker said “anyone” who had access to Cuadra’s computer could have sent e-mails to Kocis.

Kocis’ Web master, Alex Purente, of Miami, Fla., testified Cobra Video received two model applications from “Danny Moilin” on Jan. 22, 2007. Attached to the applications were several pictures of Cuadra.

Jennifer Ortega, a representative from USA People Search based in Sacramento, Calif., testified Cuadra’s Discover credit card was used on Jan. 20, 2007, to purchase personal information on Kocis. The information, Ortega told the jury, contained Kocis’ address, telephone number and names of neighbors.

Attorney Sean Ernesto Macias, of Los Angeles, testified he was speaking with Kocis on the phone when someone arrived at Kocis’ home late in the afternoon on Jan. 24, 2007.

“My conversation was brief with him,” Macias testified. “He said he was expecting a guest that day, a model or something. He went to answer the door; it sounded like he put the phone down and said ‘Hello,’ the name started with a D.”