Jury hears tape of trial witness berated

A Roxbury man heard his own voice blare over speakers yesterday in a Suffolk courtroom in chilling jailhouse recordings, orchestrating what a prosecution witness should say about him during his trial on first-degree murder charges.

That murder case is now in the hands of a jury at Suffolk Superior Court. Jason Meeks, 26, is accused of fatally shooting Alvaro Sanders at a Roxbury auto repair shop on Nov. 1, 2001.

The jury heard a tape played during the trial yesterday of a telephone call from his cell at the Nashua Street Jail, in which Meeks and his sister have a three-way conversation with Meeks's ally, Ernest Remy, just hours after Remy testified Monday as a hostile prosecution witness.

"What are you doing, Dough?" Meeks shouts at Remy, whose street name is Dough. "You're crushing me! "

Meeks also reminds Remy that they had mapped out what Remy was supposed to do. "Stick to the script," Meeks tells him.

The jury also heard other detailed phone conversations Meeks had from his cell with his sister, identified in court records as LaDawn Hicks, in which he is heard saying that he told Remy to invoke his right against self- incrimination even if it meant going to prison for contempt.

"I told this [expletive] dumb idiot . . . I explained to him I know this case, and I know what needs to be done," Meeks said. "Doesn't he understand what he's doing?"

In the tape, Hicks, 35, tells her brother she went to Remy's house Monday and reinforced his instructions, but she also said she was having trouble making Remy understand his role.

"They're not smart, they're not educated, they don't know. They let these whiteys tell them everything," she said, adding that she told Remy to stand up to a judge and "be arrogant to that man."

Remy didn't show up for court on Tuesday, but returned to court Wednesday and testified. In May 2002, Remy was arrested with the .357-caliber pistol that prosecutors said was used to kill Sanders. He testified at the trial under a grant of immunity.

There is irony in Meeks's case. When he was 10 years old in 1991, he wrote to Governor William Weld about crime in Boston. "I want you to stop the violence," Meeks wrote. "Make the people that are selling drugs go to school and put the bad people in jail." Weld in 1993 had lunch with Meeks at the John Marshall Middle School.

Meeks had a series of arrests before being charged with killing Sanders.

His sister was arrested by Boston police yesterday and charged with witness intimidation. She pleaded not guilty in Dorchester Municipal Court and was released on personal recognizance, prosecutors said.

In a statement, Suffolk District Attorney Daniel F. Conley said witness intimidation has become a chronic problem. "Whether in the form of violence, threats, or coercion, witness tampering strikes at the heart of our criminal justice system. It's a growing problem" in Boston and elsewhere, he said.

In his closing argument yesterday, defense attorney John H. Cunha told jurors they listened to the "rantings of a scared, desperate man." He said Meeks was wrong, but he is a "man who does not trust this system."

In his closing, Suffolk Assistant District Attorney Patrick Haggan said that Meeks was desperate because the evidence against him is overwhelming.

John Ellement can be reached at ellement@globe.com.