Attorney defends police, DA's Office, saying he saw no misconduct during Wilkinsburg mass shooting probe

A former attorney for a man who alleged prosecutors paid him for information and encouraged him to lie in the Wilkinsburg mass shooting case denied he saw any misconduct from the District Attorney’s Office, according to a response filed Tuesday.

Chris Eyster did not name Kendall Mikell in his nine-page response, but a different attorney last week revealed Mikell is the man referred to in court documents as Witness 1.

Mikell contacted defense attorneys for Cheron Shelton on Feb. 3, the first day of Shelton’s trial in the 2016 mass shooting that killed five and an unborn child. Mikell claimed he had been mistreated by prosecutors when they tried to use him as a jailhouse informant. Shelton was acquitted last week.

In a 61-page transcript of his conversation with defense attorney Randall McKinney, Mikell referred several times to his own defense attorney in 2016 and 2017 — Eyster.

Mikell told McKinney that before he met Assistant District Attorney Lisa Pellegrini for the first time regarding the Wilkinsburg case, Eyster told him to cooperate.

“You’re about to talk to the prosecutor, she’s the top dog,” Mikell alleged Eyster told him. “She’s a pit bull, so just be respectful and listen to what she got to say. She got a lot of power.”

Eyster said that claim is untrue.

Eyster said Mikell was informed of what would happen if he was subpoenaed and then “exploded in anger and started cursing at (Pellegrini).” That, he said, was the extent of their interactions with Pellegrini.

Eyster wrote he witnessed no misconduct on the part of prosecutors and that, as an attorney, he would have had a duty to report potential misconduct.

Mikell, according to the transcript of his interview with McKinney, mentioned only one meeting during which Eyster was present.

Eyster also said he witnessed no police misconduct.

“In fact, the detectives were conscientious in making sure that (Mikell) was protected in his role as a witness,” Eyster wrote, saying that whenever Mikell raised safety concerns, officers were responsive.

Mikell alleged in his statements to McKinney that he was pressured to fabricate evidence and that he was placed in a cell next to Shelton in an effort to get information. He claimed he was paid thousands of dollars over the course of several years.

“I was placed in an extended hotel and at the time I was given $300,” he told McKinney. “They said it was for my groceries, and for me to contact them every so often, every two weeks for more money to get by. So eventually they end up giving me money to get my own apartment and everything.”

He also said he was wired $2,700 while he was in a West Virginia halfway house to move and sign a lease.

That is the only payment Eyster references in his filing.

“At the time, (Mikell) was happy to have received such payment,” he wrote. “It was (my) belief that this was a lawful payment to such a relocating witness. There was no reason for (me) to believe that such payment was given in exchange for testimony.”

Eyster wrote that the media coverage of Mikell’s claims caused “significant harm to his professional standing and reputation.”