Milsap trial: Witness describes $10K attempt to keep her from the stand
Testimony includes timeline of texts, calls prosecutors say show Amanda Milsap tried to bribe a witness. Will Milsap take the stand? It’s the first case connected to plot that led to judge's shooting.
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WITNESS DESCRIBES $10K ATTEMPT TO KEEP HER FROM THE STAND
The attorney for Amanda Milsap will decide overnight whether the Lafayette woman accused of bribing a witness to help keep her ex-husband, Thomas Moss, from facing a trial and decades of prison time will take the stand in her own case.
Prosecutors rested their case against Milsap Tuesday evening, after presenting three witnesses in a trial that plays into a larger alleged plot to sidetrack Moss’ initial trial that led to the Jan. 18 attempted murder of Tippecanoe County Superior Court 2 Judge Steve Meyer and his wife, Kim, at their Lafayette home.
Four people – Moss, 43, of Lafayette; Nevaeh Bell, 23, of Lafayette; Blake Smith, 32, of Dayton; and Raylen Ferguson, a 38-year-old Lexington, Kentucky, man accused of pulling the trigger and shooting the Meyers through their front door – have been charged with at least a dozen felony counts, included attempted murder.
Milsap’s alleged role, as presented in charges and again in testimony Tuesday, didn’t go as far as conspiring to target a hit on a witness and eventually on the judge. She faces three felony counts of bribery, attempted obstruction of justice and invasion of privacy.
The victim in Moss’ initial trial – also an ex-wife of Moss’ now living in Pennsylvania – testified Tuesday that Milsap contacted her in December to share details of a fresh plea deal that had been offered to Moss.
Moss had been scheduled to face a trial on Jan. 20, on 2024 charges of intimation, domestic battery and unlawful possession of a firearm by a serious violent felon. He also faced charges of being an habitual offender. According to court documents, Meyer had rejected an attempt filed earlier in January to postpone that trial, lining up more than 50 jurors to report that Tuesday morning.
A string of text messages presented to a jury of 16 Tippecanoe County residents indicated that Moss told Milsap that he’d been offered a plea of 50 years in the case, which he figured would mean spending at least the next 36 years in prison.
“She was panicked, or in a state of stress or panic,” the victim in Moss’ domestic battery case said. She said she and Milsap each had children with Moss and had provided emotional support for one another in the past.
“Amanda said that she was concerned because that amount of time would leave her to be a single parent, and, essentially, that amount of time would equal a death sentence, also, due to Thomas’ health.”
She testified that Milsap “stated that Vice Lords (gang members) that she knows recommended that she offer me $10,000 to not testify in that case.” She testified that Moss was a member of the Vice Lords.
“My reaction was, I let her know there would have been no amount of money that would keep me from testifying in that case,” she said.
Earl McCoy, Milsap’s attorney, pressed the witness about whether Milsap had actually offered her the $10,000 or whether she had essentially passed along word that gang members wanted to make the offer. McCoy asked her whether Milsap ever encouraged her not to testify.
