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Attorney's Medical Issue Pauses Bloomington Murder Trial

Michael Clancy
David Proeber
/
The Pantagraph (Pool)
Michael Clancy is Sydney Mays' defense attorney.

The murder trial of Sydney Mays was put on hold Friday after his defense lawyer was taken to the hospital with an apparent nose bleed.

Lawyer Michael Clancy was in the middle of cross examination of Bloomington police Sgt. Tim Power when he asked to leave the courtroom. When he returned, he sat at the defense table until paramedics arrived. After talking with medical responders, he walked out of the courtroom for his trip via ambulance to the hospital.

Judge Casey Costigan said the bench trial will resume on Monday when final testimony and closing arguments are expected.

Mays is charged with nine counts of murder in the shooting deaths of Nate Pena, Corey Jackson and Juan Carlos Perez. Attempted murder charges also were filed in the shooting of Pena's 4-year-old son who was critically injured.

Before the trial was halted, Power was asked by Clancy about the timeline of text messages between Mays and Jahquan Howard, one of two men who picked up Mays from the Riley Drive apartment complex after the shootings.

Power acknowledged that police cannot confirm Mays' exact whereabouts for the 11 minutes he was waiting for a ride after texting Howard. The officer also confirmed a statement from Pena's girlfriend that she saw Mays in the apartment before the incident, but she could not say for certain if he was still there when she left minutes before the slayings.

The defense has argued that the state's circumstantial evidence does not prove Mays shot Pena and Jackson in Pena's apartment and Perez in a stairwell outside.

Perez came from a nearby apartment after hearing gunshots, according to police.

Pena “was a drug dealer,” Power testified Friday.

Mays was arrested two months after the Bloomington murders following his arrest in Milwaukee on drug charges.

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Edith began her career as a reporter with The DeWitt County Observer, a weekly newspaper in Clinton. From 2007 to June 2019, Edith covered crime and legal issues for The Pantagraph, a daily newspaper in Bloomington, Illinois. She previously worked as a correspondent for The Pantagraph covering courts and local government issues in central Illinois.
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