Prosecutors in the case against three members of the activist group New Era Cleveland called two witnesses during the second week of trial who may have done more to help the defense.
New Era members Antoine Tolbert, who also goes by Chairman Fahiem, Austreeia Everson and Rameer Askew are facing extortion, kidnapping, aggravated menacing, intimidating a crime victim or witness and other charges in Cuyahoga County Court of Common Pleas.
A series of 2024 incidents at gas stations at Lee Road and Harvard Avenue and Lee Road and Miles Avenue on Cleveland’s East Side between August 3 and August 14 led to most of the charges. Another incident, in July, involving an attempted citizen’s arrest by Tolbert and Askew led to the kidnapping and robbery charges months after Tolbert was first arrested on Aug. 14, 2024.
A co-owner of the Lee-Harvard station testified for the prosecution Monday. Dahoud Hamidah said his employees called him about masked men with guns, who later turned out to be New Era members, outside the station. Hamidah drove to the station after New Era returned early in the morning on August 4.
Hamidah told jurors the employee who called was obviously frightened.
“[The employee] said, ‘There’s people blocking the front of the store and a lot of people there saying I’m racist. I don’t know what to do. I’m scared,'” Hamidah said.
Hamidah fired the employee accused of racism to “defuse the situation.” The other employee working that night quit. Neither could be located to testify in this case, according to Hamidah and police reports.
After arriving at the station, Hamidah spoke with Tolbert and they can be seen on surveillance footage hugging. When officers arrived at the station, they did not arrest any members of New Era.
But Hamidah testified that New Era wasn’t allowing people to enter or leave the store and the firearms they were carrying were threatening to people.
During cross examination, defense attorney Peter Pattakos pointed out surveillance camera footage showing several customers going in and out of the store while Tolbert and other New Era members were outside.
Following the incidents on August 3 and early in the morning of August 4, members of New Era launched a boycott of the station and began posting on social media and protesting outside.
On August 6, Hamidah, who is not identified in the indictment as a victim, filed a police report. According to that report, which Pattakos read for the jury, Hamidah told police, “One of the male members walked up to [Hamidah] and stated, ‘This is not your f***ing business. I will do what I want to do and, if you come closer, I will shoot you.’”
Hamidah testified he could not remember telling an officer that. Later, Pattakos played a body camera video from an officer interviewing Hamidah on August 8. In that video, Hamidah accused Tolbert of threatening to shoot him.
“You told the police, straight up, that Tolbert said he was going to shoot you with the gun pointed at you and it was on [surveillance] tape, correct?” Pattakos asked.
“Yep,” said Hamidah.
“You lied to the officer there, didn’t you?” Pattakos said.
“That came out wrong,” Hamidah said.
Hamidah said the way rifles were slung over Tolbert’s and Askew’s shoulders made it seem like, if the guns went off, he could have been shot, even though neither had their hands on the rifles.
Askew was never charged for being present the gas stations.
Pattakos went on to question Hamidah about the surveillance footage from the station on August 3 and from another incident, on August 9, when a gunshot was fired while New Era members were outside boycotting.
In both cases, Hamidah said the surveillance footage that might have captured the threats and the gun shot were missing.
Cuyahoga County Assistant Prosecuting Attorney Mary Grace Tokmenko pushed back against the idea that New Era was only at the gas station for a peaceful boycott.
“Now, the defense talks about Tolbert and Askew, New Era, expressing their opinions on this night," Tokmenko said. "You remember him saying that?"
“Yes,” Hamidah said.
“But they were expressing their opinion with rifles," Tokmenko said. "Is that right?”
“Yes,” Hamidah said.
During Tuesday’s session, prosecutors called a then-13-year-old boy to the stand to testify about a July 27 incident involving Tolbert and Askew.
The boy, whose name Ideastream Public Media is withholding because he is a minor, had been buying marijuana and Tolbert and Askew were at his house to set up a sting of the alleged dealer. After the boy called and asked to buy $20 worth of marijuana, the alleged dealer arrived to find Tolbert and Askew, armed with rifles, walking up to his car and ordering him out.
The alleged dealer ran and police were called. The car was towed and marijuana was confiscated.
Prosecutors focused on the fact that neither the boy nor his mother had asked Tolbert and Askew to come to their house and set up the drug deal. The boy hadn’t been planning to buy more marijuana before Tolbert told him to call the alleged drug dealer and set up the sale. Prosecutors also focused on the mask worn by Askew, and the guns and vests they both put on, just before confronting the alleged dealer.
On cross-examination, Pattakos asked the boy what charges he thought were brought against Tolbert.
“I don’t know," the boy said. "Child endangerment." He then added possibly kidnapping.
The boy’s mother, who also testified earlier for the prosecution and was in the audience, said quietly, “They should have been charged with child endangerment.”
Tolbert and Askew were charged with kidnapping and aggravated robbery for the incident.
“Did you see them abduct anyone?” Pattakos asked the boy.
“No,” the boy said.
Pattakos went on to question him about the incidents at the gas stations a week later. The boy was with New Era when they went to the gas station on August 3 and on August 9.
He testified that he did not hear any threats made by anyone in New Era toward the gas stations’ employees or owners.
On August 9, members of New Era and other protestors taking part in the boycott were outside the station. On this day they were met by several owners, including Hamidah and one of the named victims in the case, Ibrahim Shehadeh.
At one point, the boy asked Pattakos to rewind video footage from August 9. He pointed out a man walking around the side of the station and said, without being asked, that was the person who fired a gun during that protest.
The man in the footage was identified as Shehadeh.
Seconds after Shehadeh walked around the side of the station and out of view of the boy and the camera, a gunshot is heard.
Prosecutors, police officers and Hamidah have pointed to that random gunshot as evidence that New Era was attempting to intimidate the owners of the gas stations.
