Twenty-nine-year-old Akil Whyte admits he is a drug dealer who sold crack, powder cocaine and marijuana, but denies that he had anything to do with the murder of Leonard Pinnock, 33, a DJ and father of Hamilton.
Pinnock was fatally shot in 2017 while sitting in a car near Dufferin Street and Bowie Avenue in Toronto, waiting for a friend who was at a barbershop.
In Whyte’s first-degree murder trial, defense attorney Anthony Robbins suggested that his client had nothing to do with the murder that took place on the night of April 21, 2017, captured on video surveillance.
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Whyte testified that he was in jail from April to September 2016, and knew that in April 2017 his phone was wiretapped and under police surveillance.
But he didn’t remember exactly what he was doing on the night of April 21.
When a series of wiretaps was heard before Judge Peter Bawden, Whyte explained that he had been nervous about being arrested again.
One night, he said that he told his girlfriend that he had been detained and searched and thought he was going to be sent back to jail.
Whyte testified that he left town on April 24 because he thought he could make more money selling drugs in cities like Ottawa.
And in June, he left Canada for the United States. His brother and other associates had been arrested in connection with a weapon and a gang investigation called “Project Kronic.” He was worried about getting caught, he testified.
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Whyte told the court that in the summer of 2019, he was shocked when US authorities arrested him for murder. He thought they were going to arrest him for drug trafficking.
In September 2019, Whyte was extradited from Atlanta to Toronto, where he was charged with first degree murder.
His attorney suggested that Whyte has been the victim of an identity mistake more than once. That included participating in a party captured on video on a cell phone at a South Toronto detention center. It later emerged that Whyte was mistaken for someone else, Robbins said.
Judge Bawden responded: “The person who misidentified him (is in jail) not in court.”
“He believes they have misidentified him in this case,” Robbins said. The mistaken identity occurs with Whyte “even when he’s in jail.”
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The court had already heard that police found a black hoodie near the crime scene that had Whyte’s DNA on it.
Police also recovered two weapons, including a loaded semi-automatic pistol. The second suspect caught on video surveillance that night has never been arrested.
Whyte argued that the man in the video, which circulated in the media before he was named a suspect, is not him. He said none of the men in the video walk like him.
“No, that’s not me,” he said, watching the video on a large projector in the courtroom.
The mother of the murdered, Angela Pinnock, was listening in court. After the hearing, he described his son as an extraordinary man, who worked as a DJ, loved life, and had a five-year-old daughter whom he adored.
Angela Pinnock holds up a button with a photo of her son.
Catherine McDonald / Global News
“We miss him so much and we just want justice because he was taken away too soon. He was shot, killed in cold blood, ”he said, holding up a button with his son’s photo.
The Crown began its questioning of Whyte before Judge Bawden asked about putting Whyte in two-day medical segregation. A COVID outbreak at the Toronto East Detention Center has already delayed the trial by a week.
Robbins argued that there is evidence to suggest Whyte would be safer in isolation, to which the judge agreed.
“I’ll leave things as they are.”
The trial continues.
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