9.Alexa Guevara — Direct/Cross/Redirect (Recall)
132 lines(In open court:)
COURT CLERK: All rise for the jury.
(The jury enters the courtroom at 2:12 p.m.)
COURT CLERK: Be seated.
MS. CONRAD: At this time the defense recalls Alexa Guevara.
THE COURT: Jurors, you will recall this witness was on the stand when we previously recessed and is now completing her testimony.
ALEXA GUEVARA, resumed
CONTINUED DIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. CONRAD:
MS. CONRAD: Good afternoon, Ms. Guevara. Ms. Guevara, when you were in your freshman year and Jahar was in his sophomore year at UMass Dartmouth, did you know where Jahar's parents were?
ALEXA GUEVARA: I knew that they were not in the country.
MS. CONRAD: And do you know what role his older brother took on in the absence of his parents?
MS. PELLEGRINI: Objection.
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MS. CONRAD:
MS. CONRAD: Did you know whether -- what Jahar's ethnic background was?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yes.
MS. CONRAD: And what was it?
ALEXA GUEVARA: He's from Chechnya.
MS. CONRAD: And at some point did he actually demonstrate a Chechen dance for you and some of your friends?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yes, he did.
MS. CONRAD: Can you tell us about that, please?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Well, our friend Dias told us one day that Jahar could do this really cool Chechen dance, and so me, my sister, Pam, and Tiff, we begged Jahar to do it for us, like for a really long time. So he eventually got up and he did it, but then afterwards, Dias told him he didn't do it right, so to do it better, to do it how he did it for him.
MS. CONRAD: Did he do it again?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yeah, he did.
MS. CONRAD: What was it like?
ALEXA GUEVARA: It was a lot of quick movements, like I didn't think he was that coordinated.
MS. CONRAD: I don't have anything further for Ms. Guevara at this time.
THE COURT: All right.
Ms. Pellegrini?
MS. PELLEGRINI: Thank you, your Honor.
CROSS-EXAMINATION BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: Good afternoon, Ms. Guevara.
ALEXA GUEVARA: Good afternoon.
MS. PELLEGRINI: When you were here last week, you testified that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev would -- when you'd order pizza, things like that, that he would pay for it, correct?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yes.
MS. PELLEGRINI: All right. And he had a lot of extra money, didn't he?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No, I wouldn't say so.
MS. PELLEGRINI: He didn't have a job while he was at UMass Dartmouth, did he?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No.
MS. PELLEGRINI: But he had money to buy pizza for other --
MS. CONRAD: Objection, your Honor. May we be heard?
THE COURT: All right.
(Discussion at sidebar and out of the hearing of the jury:)
MS. CONRAD: I don't think this is proper impeachment, and I don't see how it goes to bias, and I don't see how it's within the scope, so I'm not sure what the government is doing here.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Well, I don't think I have to explain what the government is doing to Ms. Conrad, but the fact of the matter is that -- with respect to how well she knows the defendant and the activities in which she participated with him, and I think it is important for the jury to know. My line of questioning will be whether she knows that he got money from doing drugs. I know they did drugs together. Her 302, her prior testimony in the Tazhayakov case indicated that she would often text him. So I'm going down that road to find out exactly what she knew about him.
MS. CONRAD: Well, I don't see how doing drugs is a source of income, and the government is purposely asking witnesses who knew the defendant as a child whether he knew he was Tamerlan's brother at UMass Dartmouth. Unless the government is prepared to prove that up, which I think it would be inadmissible anyway -- but unless they're prepared to prove that up, I don't see how it's proper for them to be asking these questions to plant that seed without any foundation. What is their basis for that?
THE COURT: Okay. It can go too far, but I'll permit some of it in.
(In open court:)
BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: Ms. Guevara, do you know if Jahar Tsarnaev got extra money from selling drugs?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yes.
MS. PELLEGRINI: And how do you know that?
ALEXA GUEVARA: I just heard that he sold --
MS. CONRAD: Objection. Move to strike. No personal knowledge.
THE COURT: Yes, I'll strike it on that answer.
BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: Ms. Guevara, you smoked marijuana with Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, correct?
THE COURT: Let me just remind the jury that if it's stricken evidence, it's no longer evidence, and you can disregard it.
BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: Correct?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Correct.
MS. PELLEGRINI: All right. In fact, when you were talking with Ms. Conrad about that the last time, on spring break when you and the defendant, Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, and others went out for dinner, isn't it true that all of you were looking to buy marijuana?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Eventually by the end of the night.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Right. And did you do so?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yes.
MS. PELLEGRINI: And, in fact, when you -- you indicated that you played a game with your phone with the defendant. Is that correct? A Scrabble game?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Yes.
MS. PELLEGRINI: But you also used your phone to communicate with him about doing drugs. Isn't that correct?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No, it's not correct.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Do you recall testifying in the summer of 2014?
MS. CONRAD: Objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Let me see you.
(Discussion at sidebar and out of the hearing of the jury:)
MS. CONRAD: She acknowledged that they did drugs together, so I don't know what the relevance of the text is because she's not really impeaching her because she already acknowledged it.
THE COURT: Yeah. Where are you heading?
MS. PELLEGRINI: I'm saying that the fact that they exchanged text messages and she indicated that her text messages would be something like "Roll up," as in "Let's smoke," and "Do you have a bud" -- "Do you want to smoke" -- indicating a sort of coded nature of their conversations, that it wasn't simply --
THE COURT: No, I think you have enough. You've got the fact of the use of drugs. I think that's enough.
(In open court:)
BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: Ms. Guevara, in the March spring break that Ms. Conrad asked you about, Mr. Tsarnaev didn't stay around at the UMass Dartmouth campus, did he?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Do you know where he went?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Came back to Cambridge, I believe.
MS. PELLEGRINI: And as a matter of fact, for the Christmas break was he also in Cambridge, if you know?
MS. CONRAD: Objection to scope.
THE COURT: Overruled.
ALEXA GUEVARA: I believe he was.
BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: And you indicated that during the spring break when you all were together that there was a time that fireworks were involved, correct?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Correct.
MS. PELLEGRINI: All right. And isn't it true that it was Dzhokhar Tsarnaev who brought the fireworks to the group?
ALEXA GUEVARA: From the car, yes.
MS. PELLEGRINI: All right. And isn't it true that he got those fireworks out of a backpack that was in the car that he was driving?
ALEXA GUEVARA: This is true.
MS. PELLEGRINI: And were you aware that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev left the UMass Dartmouth campus on April 11th and didn't return until April the 16th?
ALEXA GUEVARA: Not specifically aware of it, but, yeah.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Did you see him during that time period, between April 11th and April 16th of 2013?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Did you know that Dzhokhar Tsarnaev had opened up a Twitter account under the name G-H-U-R-A-B-A, "Ghuraba"?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Did he tell you that he planned to go to a gun range during spring break?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No, he did not.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Did he tell you after he got back from spring break that he had gone to a gun range, a firing range?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No, that topic never came up.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Did he ever tell you that he had a gun?
MS. CONRAD: Objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Sustained.
BY MS. PELLEGRINI:
MS. PELLEGRINI: Did Dzhokhar Tsarnaev warn you not to go to the Boston Marathon April the 15th of 2013?
MS. CONRAD: Objection, your Honor.
THE COURT: Overruled. You may answer that.
ALEXA GUEVARA: No, he never warned me.
MS. PELLEGRINI: Thank you. I have no further questions.
THE COURT: Ms. Conrad?
MS. CONRAD: One moment, please.
(Counsel confer off the record.)
MS. CONRAD: I just have a couple of questions. May I inquire from here?
THE COURT: If it's really only a couple.
MS. CONRAD: It is, but I'll take a walk.
REDIRECT EXAMINATION BY MS. CONRAD:
MS. CONRAD: In spring break, who was it who was looking for marijuana to smoke the evening when fireworks were involved?
ALEXA GUEVARA: I would say it was a joint effort, I guess, from all of us.
MS. CONRAD: No pun intended?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No pun intended.
(Laughter.)
MS. CONRAD: And do you recall whether Jahar smoked with you?
ALEXA GUEVARA: No, he didn't smoke with us.
MS. CONRAD: And he didn't provide the marijuana that evening, did he?
MS. CONRAD: Thank you.
THE COURT: All right, Ms. Guevara. You may step down.
(The witness is excused.)
MS. CONRAD: The defense calls Rosa Booth.