Former Harvard student indicted as accessory in dorm slaying

A tall young woman with short hair and large silver hoop earrings, clad in a dark pantsuit, Smith appeared poised and collected during the hearing.

Her attorney, John Osler, said the state was wrong to charge her because she had cooperated fully with the investigation.

"She has never had any contact with the criminal justice system in her life until the events at Harvard," he said.

The three men who allegedly participated in the shooting, none of whom were students at Harvard, are already facing murder charges. Prosecutors say the trio arranged for a meeting with Cosby for the purpose of robbing him in a drug deal. Cosby was shot inside the Kirkland House dorm on the afternoon of May 18. He staggered outside and collapsed on a Cambridge street corner. He was pronounced dead early the next day at a hospital.

Prosecutors say Smith, a Harvard student at the time, had invited one of the men -- her boyfriend, Jabrai Jordan Copney -- to campus and had given the trio her college ID, which works as an electronic access card, to allow them to enter Kirkland House. After the shooting, prosecutors allege, Smith took the firearm that was used to another location and hid it under a friend's dorm bed, without her friend knowing. She then fled with the three men to New York, paying for all of their bus fares.

Prosecutors say that when she later returned to Massachusetts with Copney and was questioned by Harvard Police about her ID card, she lied to them, denying she had given it to anyone.

Smith also allegedly misled a grand jury when she testified she was unaware of the firearm until after the shooting. Prosecutors say Smith was present when the gun was loaded before the shooting.

Assistant District Attorney Daniel Bennett said Smith had been considered a cooperating witness but prosecutors eventually came to believe she was just "feigning cooperation."

Bennett said Smith had also lied to prosecutors about Copney's name, calling him "Jordan Coombs," and lied when she told a grand jury that she didn't know that Jiggetts and Jordan had previously lured two Yale students to New York and then robbed them.

Osler said his client had testified before the grand jury or been interviewed by police at least a half-dozen times. He noted that Smith is still in love with Copney.

A bail review hearing was slated for this afternoon.

Copney, 20, of New York; Blayn Jiggetts, 19, of Mount Vernon, N.Y.; and Jason Aquino, 23, of Manhattan; are all being held without bail on murder and other charges.