New Evidence Said to Emerge In Gay Porn Producer Murder

I’m not sure what I believe about this case involving two Virginia Beach men accused of killing gay adult video producer Bryan Kocis at his home in Pennsylvania. I know for a fact that there are local gays in this area who are convinced that Joseph Kerekes and Harlow Cuadra are innocent and were set up to receive the blame. These supporters have go so far as to raise money for their legal defense costs. In addition, there have been persistent rumors that Cuadra and Kerekes were running a call boy network in the Washington, D.C., area that had GOP players in the DC area as clients. Similarly, there has been other speculation that Cuadra and Kerekes are being set up in order to silence them and/or have them destroy the DC client list. Yet other theories even cite that the case somehow has ties with the double murder and suicide last summer in an Orlando, Florida, at the residence owned by the former Executive Director of the Georgia Republican Party (Jason Robert Drake was identified as the shooter) and to right-wing GOP Congressman Patrick McHenry who was found to have numerous young men residing at his residence and to have ties to Jason Robert Drake (http://patgobyebye.blogspot.com/2007/09/traditional-media-ignores_04.html). Again, I am at a loss as to what the true story might actually turn out to be. It's just very ironic that two residents of conservative, GOP dominated Virginia Beach are involved in such a case. In any event, here are highlights from 365gay.com’s latest coverage (http://www.365gay.com/Newscon08/02/022708mur.htm):

(Wilkes-Barre, Pennsylvania) The prosecution in the murder trial of two men accused of killing gay adult video producer Bryan Kocis says it has received new evidence from the FBI. The Luzerne County District Attorney's office has told the judge in the case that the FBI has turned over several handed over various handwritten letters believed to have been written by defendants Joseph Kerekes and Harlow Cuadra. The District Attorney's office has not revealed what is in the letters, but a motion to judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. asks for an order requiring both defendants to produce handwriting samples to the court. "The documents indicate that both defendants had written the letters which contain material information relative to the ... case," the motion says.

On the hard drive they found a photograph of a man who was to have had an appointment with Kocis the night he was killed. The picture came with the name "Drake" and police at the time said it could be a nickname or his last name. Several days after the picture was released the Times Leader newspaper found a Virginia Beach escort who said he was the subject of photograph that that it was a head shot that he uses for publicity purposes, that he had never heard of a "Drake" and that he was working in Virginia the night Kocis was killed.

When the pair became suspects in the murder Virginia Beach police and the FBI began their own investigation into the men and started looking into their business. In July Cuadra and Kerekes were charged in Virginia with racketeering, conspiracy to launder money and conspiracy to receive money from the earnings of prostitution. The pair made a plea agreement in which they pleaded no contest and allowed police in Virginia to seize their assets.