BELFAST, Maine — The attorney for the Jackson man accused of killing a Florida firefighter in a drug-related shooting in February has filed a motion seeking to suppress evidence obtained during questioning of his client by police in Connecticut and Maine.
The motion on behalf of Daniel Porter, 25, seeks to quash statements the suspect made to law enforcement officials in Connecticut and Maine state police detectives from Feb. 22 through Feb. 28, according to documents filed Monday in Waldo County Superior Court in Belfast and posted on the Maine Judicial Branch’s website on Friday.
In the motion, attorney Jeffrey Silverstein of Bangor challenges whether statements made by Porter — and evidence gathered as result of those statements — were the product of a violation of Porter’s federal and state constitutional rights.
The motion disputes Porter’s statements to police were voluntary, that police in Connecticut and Maine complied with the provisions of the Miranda Act, and that Porter voluntarily waived his right to remain silent, consult with an attorney and have the attorney present during questioning.
The motion also states the “fruit of the poisonous tree” doctrine challenges the admissibility of any physical evidence obtained as a result of Porter’s statements.
Silverstein could not be reached for comment Friday night.
Porter was indicted in May by a Waldo County grand jury and charged with one count of intentional or knowing murder in the slaying of Jerry Perdomo, a firefighter and emergency medical technician for the Seminole County Fire Department.
Porter pleaded not guilty in June. He is being held without bail at Two Bridges Regional Jail in Wiscasset pending his trial, which is scheduled to begin on April 1, 2013, in Waldo County Superior Court, according to the Maine Judicial branch’s web site.
Police have said that Porter shot the 31-year-old Perdomo in the side of the head with a semiautomatic rifle on Feb. 16 at a rented home in Jackson after the two men had a dispute over drugs. Perdomo reportedly had been coming to Bangor once a month for nearly a year in order to illicitly transport and sell prescription drugs from Florida.
On the day he was killed, Perdomo packed a gun and two cellphones and told his girlfriend, Lisa Gould of Bangor, that he had to go collect a debt, according to Maine State Police Detective Brian Strout, who testified at Porter’s bail hearing in March at Waldo County Superior Court.
Porter’s girlfriend, Cheyanne Nowak, met Perdomo at a Route 69 gas station and led him to the rural Jackson home where Porter was staying. She then left the house to pick up her toddler while the two men were inside playing pool together, Strout said.
Porter later told police that he had owed Perdomo $3,000 and that Perdomo had threatened him and his family. One of the alleged threats was made public during Porter’s bail hearing, when he said that Perdomo told him he would erase $500 from the debt if Perdomo could rape Nowak on the pool table.
After Perdomo was shot, his body was wrapped in blue tarps and then moved several miles to the woods near Porter’s grandmother’s home on Dahlia Farm Road in Newburgh, Assistant Attorney General Leane Zainea said earlier.
Police found the body on a red sled off a woods path nearly two weeks into a widespread search effort that included local police, wardens and firefighters from Florida.
Police had arrested Porter and charged him with homicide the day before finding Perdomo’s body after discovering skull fragments and blood drops in the rented Jackson home.
Although I didn’t read all of it, I believe it’s nothing more than a lawyer doing his desperate job. 2 States wrongfully interrogating? More than unlikely.
Delaying a life sentence while costing the States lawyer fees. Stop playing games, ‘fess up and spare the rest of us.
The lowest of the low , with no where to go.
Grasping at straws with a bottom feeder of an attorney wont really help.
Actually , just the opposite.
…. Lots more BS before its over for this murdering drug dealer.
At least he didn’t take an innocent persons life, like that now famous football player did.
He had the right to remain silent, but not the inclination. (Shrek said it to Donkey, and it seems just as true in this instance.)
Tah dah! Good one, I like Shrek quotes. Had the right to remain silent, but not enough brains to keep his mouth shut…
Dang, Maine sure has it’s share of J/O appeals. The cops not questioning him with the right shoelaces on has nothing to do with the foolish alibi he’s trying to peddle, seems like the standard TOG (The Other Guy) defense. Are there no more good jailhouse lawyers left? Procedural errors don’t clear the way for anything but a new trial and he’d get the same again. All the babbling in the world — he owed Yaya 5K then he say and he say and they go — won’t erase blood and a chunk of skull from his apartment. Denied! Next.
2 Agencies violating the same protection’s ? Not likely and his lawyer knows it. This is a stall tactic and nothing more than a try at getting what his lawyer knows is evidence that he committed the murder kept out of the jury’s view. Problem is now that the evidence has been mentioned in the press the jury is gonna’ wonder where it is if it’s not presented at trial. People have been convicted for both what’s been presented and what’s been withheld. The Casey Anthony jury is getting that goof shown right now and is gonna make Florida jury’s a lot more focused on both what was, and what was clearly seen by it’s not being presented, and was not shown to them as a cause for decison and verdict. And you can be sure that Connecticut is going to make sure that their people didn’t screw up. No one likes their dirty laundry shown out in public.
Perdomo should be described as a drug dealer. Having a job as a fireman has nothing to do with why he was killed
I wouldn’t say that too loudly….even though everything has come out, sometimes it’s hard for people to accept cold hard facts like that..
Why is it these knuckleheads who rob people of their absolute and inarguable constitutional right to remain alive always try to haplessly stand on their own constitutional rights in an attempt to get away with these felonies and capital crimes? It leades me to believe that both they and their defense attorneys are menaces to public safety.
just more Bull***..another druggy kills druggy sob story..porter/cheyanne..should all just be locked up for good..useless pieces if druggy crappers..but hey..waldo county is covered with them..should be long till someone overdoses, or kills some one else….cops know…nothing ever done..till something like this happens
I’ll admit all my legal knowledge comes from Law and Order, but don’t the police make suspects sign a waiver when they waive their rights?
He likes to talk. This is good because we like to listen. How did his girlfriend walk away without an arrest?
probably be more that the cops/courts can handle..she is just going on with her life and other druggy friends,,(I did not say she does drugs) ;0)
Im sorry, this is a way he will get him self out of the trouble he SHOULD be in if found guilty. But we need to protect his rights. Lord knows, we need to protect offenders rights cause if not, they will walk no matter what hanis crime they have committeds.