A man accused of an armed robbery rampage testified Wednesday that he'd stolen from three Little Rock banks and a drugstore but denied he ever used a weapon or threatened anyone.
Testimony by Stephen Joel Frazer, on the second day of his trial, came after prosecutors had withdrawn one set of bank robbery charges when the Maumelle man's lawyers presented evidence that two state witnesses had lied to the judge.
Frazer, 30, now faces six felony charges, three counts each of aggravated robbery and theft, over allegations that he held up the Bank of the Ozarks branch on Rodney Parham Road, the Walgreens on Cantrell Road and the Summit Bank on Rodney Parham Road, over the span of a week in November 2013.
His lawyers say that at most, he's guilty of theft. Proceedings resume at 9:30 a.m. today.
Facing a potential life sentence, the Maumelle man testified Wednesday, that he had started stealing that week to feed his out-of-control prescription drug addiction.
He said he needed the pills so desperately that he could not take the time to sleep because he'd go into withdrawal.
"I felt like at the time I couldn't control myself with the pills," said Frazer, a former Arvest Bank manager who had been fired for writing bad checks more than a year before the crimes.
He said he used his knowledge of bank security to get tellers to give him money but didn't really think through what he was doing.
"There wasn't a master plan," he said, explaining why he never tried to disguise himself from bank cameras. "I wasn't worried about getting caught."
But Frazer denied that he'd ever carried a gun or even pretended to have one, despite testimony from tellers at different banks who said they thought he was armed.
One woman testified that she had seen the outline of a gun pointed at her in his pocket. Another told jurors that Frazer had a note that stated he had a gun.
One such note was found in his car after his arrest. Frazer testified that he wrote it but never showed it to anyone.
"I did not use that note. As soon as I wrote it, I threw it back in the car," he said. "I did not need it."
On cross-examination, Frazer said he was scared and nervous during the thefts but that he was not going to hurt anyone whether they gave in to his demands or not.
"I wasn't going to," he said.
"Those people in the bank didn't know that," senior deputy prosecutor Leigh Patterson said. "Did you see they were scared?"
"I'm sure they had to be," Frazer replied.
Patterson also showed jurors photographs of Frazer in a fourth bank, a Simmons Bank branch on Arkansas 10. Frazer said he'd planned to take money from that bank but felt that he'd drawn too much attention to himself so he left and went to the First Security Bank on Kavanaugh Boulevard.
Patterson and fellow prosecutor Ashley Bowen had withdrawn charges related to that bank after the defense presented evidence outside the presence of the jury that two state witnesses had lied to the judge.
Frazer attorneys Bill James and Bobby Digby said the witnesses had lied about violating a court order forbidding them from talking about the case.
All of the witnesses had been ordered by Circuit Judge Leon Johnson not to discuss the case until he had released them from service.
But at least five witnesses from two of the banks had talked among themselves, despite the order, according to testimony. The defense said that violation was tantamount to the witnesses colluding against Frazer.
Those witnesses denied any deliberate wrongdoing.
And the judge refused defense requests to either strike their testimony or call a mistrial, but he allowed the attorneys to question two of the witnesses in front of the jury about what had happened.
Metro on 09/29/2016