Cobra Killer (40 page)

Kerekes is back to telling the story he told investigators just before he signed his plea agreement: “I was back at the hotel (while Kocis was killed), and there is nothing that proves I was there.”
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The DA believes Kerekes’ version, but also know that Pennsylvania law does not provide any sort of “out” for a person who assists in planning, executing, and concealing a murder, even if they weren’t present for the actual act. The lead prosecutor, Assistant DA Melnick believes Kerekes was likely to get the death penalty, and that is the reason he took the deal.
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“He was probably the less likeable in any possible jury’s eyes,” concurs Deputy DA Shannon Crake.
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Kerekes’ dislike of prosecutors and investigators is, as expected, intense. A June 2009 visit by Melnick and Hannon to see Kerekes in order to “profile” him angered him considerably. Kerekes said Melnick and State Police Corporal Leo Hannon sought to conduct “a series of interviews (with me) in which they will probe my life, from babe ‘till today, so they, law enforcement, can catch ‘minds’ like mine.”
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Kerekes said he was told this was part of his plea agreement, but said, “I swore to them it was not part of my plea deal nor was I ever informed of the same. I met with them for a half hour…I clammed up (and) resisted this effort of theirs and told them I wasn’t going to cooperate.”
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Long days and nights

For now, Kerekes follows the prison doctor’s orders and takes daily medications that include psychotropic drugs meant to level and control his personality, including anger and resulting impulsive acts. “I’m following all the rules and establishing a good record for myself so there will be no reason from my time here that they will say I cannot get a parole someday,” he says hopefully.
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Spend a little time with Kerekes, and one notices a rather dramatic sadness that comes over him now and again. While his voice is up and he speaks fast about his unending love for Harlow Cuadra and their success as male escorts and porn producers, he does drift into melancholy. He finds himself agreeing with a painful description of him offered by his former pastor and mentor, Ron Johnston, that declared that a “dichotomy between good and evil” rages inside Kerekes.
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When pressed how his internal struggles to make the right choices between good and bad are any more vexing than those of any other person, Kerekes adds, without explanation, “I’ve done some really bad things in my life. I have not lived a life that has pleased or served God.”
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Looking back, he regrets leaving the church and seminary, and although he continually insists he is not gay and says he will never identify himself as such, he recalls with a low voice, “Harlow said to me once that I should have focused on being a pastor in (a gay) church.”
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Prison seems to hold some relief for Kerekes. Gone are the days of having to hustle up thousands of dollars a day from online porn or sexual encounters from anyone willing to pay. Gone is the nice house that was mortgaged to the rafters with bill collectors at every turn. Gone is the worry that a life built on lies and innuendo must bring. The prison feeds him well, Kerekes says, and he enjoys most of his fellow inmates and the workouts they can undertake in the prison gym.

His biggest worry now, he says, is trying to overcome persistent insomnia.

A couple of years into his sentence, Kerekes learned of his father’s September 2010 death via a telephone call from family members. Someone later posted a heartfelt, online condolence note from Joe expressing his love for his father that said in part, “I never met one single man on Earth with such meekness, piety, honor, patience, long-suffering and faith. You ARE the perfect Father, never pressuring, never hurting. Only loving, supporting, and uplifting.”
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Covering a very unusual trial

Mark Guydish, an opinion writer for the
Times Leader
newspaper in Wilkes-Barre, offered a thoughtful analysis of the Kocis murder case. He noted Luzerne County residents had become accustomed to some level of controversy and problems downtown at the courthouse, but the courthouse remained “a majestic house, a metaphor for justice.”
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Guydish provided a detailed description of Courtroom No. 2, where Judge Peter Paul Olszewski presided over the Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas. “Sweeping paintings” above Olszewski’s bench depict a series of judicial virtues, including rectitude, courage, moderation, learning, and wisdom. “Into this larger-than-life setting walks Harlow Cuadra, a man with a name suitable for a sports car, or maybe a pulp-novel villain,” Guydish surmised. “He looks more like an oversized Opie than the murderer he is accused of being, shoulders slightly rounded, as he strolls to his seat.”
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The Commonwealth of Pennsylvania versus Harlow Raymond Cuadra had become “so big lawyers almost literally trip over it as they present their arguments. Cardboard boxes stacked under tables bulge with documents. Ring binders nearly a half-foot thick sprawl on the foot of desks,” Guydish added.
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Cuadra’s trial is and was a big deal for Luzerne County, but hardly the first or last big deal to come this way. What stood out here, Guydish pointed out, were the sometimes lurid details that emerged from a case that stretched from unlikely-Dallas Township “to late-night cocktails of Las Vegas casinos, the sandy beaches of San Diego, the hills of Virginia (back to) the cell phone towers of the Back Mountain and even a hotel in Plains Township.”
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Times Leader
reporter Edward Lewis, who covered the trial for local readers, also commented on the novelty of reporting on a gay porn murder trial. “Luzerne County sure has its share of high-profile and dramatic murder trials in recent memory,” Lewis wrote. A reporter with more than a decade of experience covering courts and crimes, Lewis said “reporting about this case was certainly different than all the other murder cases that I’ve covered.”
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It was Lewis who tracked down Cuadra before he had been charged and arrested with the murder of Bryan Kocis. Lewis also found himself logging onto gay porn websites and blogs of all types to learn more about his subject.
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Reporter Sue Henry from WILK Radio in Wilkes-Barre covered the trial for her listeners and offered her analysis: “You’ve got to hand it to Harlow Cuadra. He knows how to play the part. Although skies outside were overcast with a hint of drizzle, Harlow lit up a Luzerne County courtroom…with the performance of his life.” Henry noted that Cuadra took the stand against the advice of his attorneys and “casually” told jurors about “his dual careers as a male escort and pornographic actor.”
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She quoted Cuadra as saying, “I fit the part and that’s all that matters,” noting that he sounded like a person answering a cast call for a play or musical, rather than a man fighting for his life and freedom. “Removing his square-framed glasses, the boyish Harlow faced the folks who might hold his life in their hands and detailed the fine points of the male escort/actor trade, mentioning the hungry nature of the newcomers and the quest for site traffic on an internet business,” Henry reported.
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The Times Leader’s
Guydish tried to cut through all of the drama in some of his analysis of the case. “As you learn of the sprawling, seedy, even sadistic saga of Bryan Kocis and the two-week trial of his alleged murderer, Harlow Cuadra, it’s easy to get lost in details that include nuances such as cell phone tower placement, or the storyline shifting from Virginia to Nevada to California to Florida to Pennsylvania,” he wrote. It’s tempting to get “stalled in the visceral response to the sordid topics” the trial presented, or that some had become “disgusted by the notion that you should waste time on homicide among homosexuals peddling porn and gay prostitution,” Guydish noted.
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But Guydish made an important point often lost in the sensational nature of the trial. “Regardless of your response to the men involved or their actions and fates, there is something else more primal to remember. There are other characters who have been little more than flitting shadows on this stage. These people have families.”
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At long last, Lockhart gets to make his denial

Almost a year after Bryan Kocis’ murder and shortly before Harlow Cuadra’s murder trial began, Sean Lockhart finally took up the issue of his former friend’s death in a sustained form. In a December 15, 2007 blog posting, he discussed pre-trial preparations for Harlow Cuadra’s upcoming trial and his expected return trip to Pennsylvania. “Let’s face it, making comments or even acknowledging any of (the facts of the Kocis case) has been very difficult for Grant and me,” he wrote.
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Still cautioning that saying too much about the case put the chances of convicting Cuadra at risk, Lockhart said, “I can tell all of you definitely that Grant and I did not have anything to do with this heinous and wrongful act and that we are doing what we can to bring justice to Bryan’s family, despite the very public and hurtful public feud carried on between us.”
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Lockhart said he knew there were doubters and many who believed he and his partner were somehow responsible for the murder, “but until you find yourself in the position Grant and I have found ourselves in, you’ll never be able to see from our perspective. When the world and your industry insists on implicating you as a murder suspect, nothing good can come of that. Grant and I put everything on the line to voluntarily take part in a two-day wire tap that ultimately provided the Pennsylvania authorities with evidence.”
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Finally able to air his denials, Lockhart confessed that feelings of depression and low self-esteem overwhelmed him at times in the long months between the arrest of Cuadra and Kerekes in May 2007, and the Kerekes plea agreement entered in December 2008 and the Cuadra trial in March 2009. “Lots of damage has been done,” Lockhart wrote in a February 2009 blog posting on www.brentcorriganinc.com. “All those who persecuted me and insisted I had everything to do with Bryan’s death; they will never come forward and admit they were wrong. All those ‘publications’ and web portals that reported on it in the beginning…will never correct their assumptions.”
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Lockhart reactions remain strong

Lockhart’s career appears to be as strong as ever as he remains one of the most popular actors in gay porn. His latest efforts have been well-received, by fans, at least. In 2009, he earned thirteen separate nominations for the Gay Adult Video News Awards. Lockhart was nominated for “Best Supporting Actor,” “Best Sex Scene,” and “Best Group Scene” for his role in
The Porne Ultimatum,
a movie produced by Dirty Bird Pictures. Lockhart won separate nominations for “Performer of the Year,” “Best Actor,” “Best Bottom,” and “Best All-Sex Film” for another role in another Dirty Bird production,
Just the Sex.
He also won a nomination for “Best Pro-Am Film” for
Brent Corrigan’s Summit,
a film he directed.

In 2010, he was nominated and won awards at the GayVNs for “Best Web Performer” of the year and for “Best Amateur/Pro-Am Release” of the year for
Brent Corrigan’s Big Easy.
He also won a special “fan award” as “Best Bottom” performing in gay porn. The Fleshjack Company also released its latest plastic sex products, including a Brent Corrigan dildo, mouth, and anus formed from molds made by Lockhart and featuring his image in the promotional materials.

The 2009 GayVN Awards were punctuated, however, by an open attack on Lockhart by rival gay porn actor and producer Michael Lucas. Lucas sent Twitter messages to his fan base that he “had Brent Corrigan (Lockhart) kicked out of the GayVN Awards tonight…that criminal brat has put too many in this industry at risk already.”
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At one point, Lucas even took to the stage of the awards as organizers attempted to present an award honoring the “Association of Sites Advocating Child Protection,” interrupting proceedings to make his feelings about Lockhart known.

Later Lucas explained his actions by saying “I want(ed) to stress that the reason I am coming down hard on the industry reporters rooting for (Lockhart), and (the) judges embracing him, is that his claim to fame is that he was involved in child pornography. This made him a name and instead of being disgusted, they are mesmerized by it. That is revolting. I hold the conviction that we need to protect (the adult film industry) and our youths; it is a civil duty, a moral challenge, an imperative task from which we cannot escape.”
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Lockhart’s reply was to the point: “I’ve done everything I can to set it straight. I’ve issued numerous apologies in every venue that would talk to me. I’ve done everything I can to apologize.”
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Despite this rather open harangue, Lockhart claims that Lucas once inquired about casting him in one of his films in 2006. “There were a few short e-mails back and forth between myself and one of Michael Lucas’ assistants,” Lockhart told blogger Jason Sechrest. Lucas acknowledged the approach to Lockhart, but said, he, like everyone else, was unaware that Lockhart was ever underage as a performer. No deal was ever arranged for Lockhart to appear in a Lucas production.
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Lockhart going mainstream?

One of Lockhart’s forays into mainstream productions, a non-sexual role in the 2008 gay spring break romp,
Another Gay Sequel: Gays Gone Wild,
was marginally successful and presented Lockhart in the part of Stan the Merman (read: Mermaid). The film won a nomination for “Best Alternative Release” from the GayVN Awards, and featured other gay icons such as Ru Paul, Perez Hilton, Scott Thompson, Wil Wikle, and Jim Verraros.
Another Gay Sequel
had limited theatrical release, first in New York, Los Angeles, and Fort Lauderdale, Florida, but eventually was scheduled for runs in other large markets and has enjoyed significant success as a DVD rental as well.
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