A man accused of a College Hill murder will be offered bond after an appeals court ruled a Cincinnati Police officer gave false testimony in a pretrial hearing in Hamilton County courts.
El-Hajj Evans turned himself in after the June 15, 2024, shooting of Demarco Page and said he was defending himself during an altercation.
Witnesses say the incident started as a series of fist fights between Page and Evans. According to court filings describing witness testimony and video, Page at one point wielded a crowbar, while Evans had a gun visibly sticking out of his pocket.
Evans allegedly fired eight or nine rounds after the two fought and were separated multiple times. Those rounds hit Page and a bystander who sustained non-fatal injuries.
Initially, Evans' bond was proposed at $750,000. When his attorneys moved to have it reduced, prosecutors moved to have bond denied altogether.
According to the Nov. 19 Ohio First District Court of Appeals decision, that motion denying bond was granted after Cincinnati Police Homicide Detective Delicia Grisby testified that no witnesses described Page acting violently toward them during the incident that lead to his shooting.
Some testimony indicates Evans shot Page for spitting on him. And one witness, a close friend of Page's, said Evans "didn't have to shoot" him.
Grisby testified that she was "not told by anybody that there was an issue with [Page] coming after other people.”
But recordings of the interviews Grisby and other officers conducted with the witnesses revealed at least two people did describe Page acting violently toward them during the incident.
In one recorded interview, a witness said, "he had me in a headlock, like whatever he had on the back of my neck, like, 'I kill her, I kill her,' and he drug me out the car. Then they got to fighting again. He grabbed me by my neck again... like he had me in a headlock by the car, and when he let me go, he pushed me. So that’s when I ran around the car, and that’s when I just start hearing ... gunshots."
Another witness described a similar scenario in the interviews. The two witnesses also expressed certainty or a fear that Page had a firearm, though Grisby would testify that no one indicated that during interviews.
"These police interviews, both of which Detective Grisby was present for, contradict her testimony," the appeals court's decision states.
WVXU reached out to CPD for comment on the appeals court's decision.
Attorney Bill Gallagher is representing Evans in the case. He claims Grisby's statements were "blatant" false testimony and says she should be put on Hamilton County's Brady List. That's a list of law enforcement officers who give false testimony or engage in other dishonest conduct.
"She was in the room and knew what was said and she lied," Gallagher said of the witness interviews Grisby testified about.
In its Nov. 19 decision, the appeals court set Evans' bond at its initial $750,000 level. Gallagher says he's filing again to have it reduced.
“He’s been sitting in jail for almost 18 months based on false evidence," he said. "He’s lost a livelihood, relationships. He should be home.”
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