Kyle Page testified last year that he stood 2 feet away from Kevin Battista when the 30-year-old Bristol Township father of two was shot and killed in December 2006.
The shooter, he testified, was his first cousin, Ckaron Handy, with whom he was selling cocaine that night. He saw the .22 caliber revolver that Handy used on Battista during a drug deal that turned into a botched robbery, he testified at Handy’s preliminary hearing on murder and related charges on Jan. 23, 2013.
Page reportedly told the same story in 2009 when he appeared before a Bucks County grand jury investigating Battista’s murder, which occurred in the Fleetwing section of Bristol Township.
 |
| Kyle Page |
But authorities recently learned that Page, one of their star witnesses, couldn’t have seen the murder. He was in jail at the time, police said.
On Monday — the same day jury selection began in Handy’s murder trial — Page, 29, of Bristol Township, was charged with three felony counts of perjury. He was arraigned before District Judge Joanne Kline — who also had heard his 2013 testimony — and was sent to Bucks County prison in lieu of 10 percent of $25,000 bail.
Bristol Township police allege that Page lied three times under oath: twice before a grand jury in 2009 when he testified that he was an eyewitness to the murder and named Handy as the killer, and again during the 2013 preliminary hearing.
Page admitted last month to lying about being a witness to murder, police said, after Bucks County prison officials confirmed that he was in custody at the Doylestown Township jail on the day of the murder.
Page, who has a long criminal history going back to 2004, has since written two letters to Bucks County deputy district attorney Chris Rees, who is prosecuting Handy, apologizing for lying and attempting “to explain why he has lied in the investigation into Kevin Battista’s murder,” according to an affidavit of probable cause.
Bucks County Prosecutor Christopher Rees declined to comment Monday on how the perjury charge might effect the trial or what Page told him in the letters.
Bristol Township police allege that Handy, now 26, of Philadelphia, shot Battista, described as a recreational cocaine user, when he tried to buy $60 worth of the drug while looking for his longtime girlfriend.
The case has taken eight years to get to trial.
 |
| Ckaron Handy (L) and Kevin Battista |
Bristol Township police said that while Handy, a convicted drug dealer, was an early suspect in Battista’s murder, they didn’t have enough evidence — or witnesses — to connect him to the crime. Witnesses had refused to come forward, police said.
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office then took the case before a grand jury in 2009, and three years later Handy was charged with murder and related charges.
Handy is already serving a seven-year sentence in federal prison for a 2012 conviction of a federal firearms charge for possessing a semi-automatic handgun in 2011 in Bristol Township. At the time, Handy was a convicted felon and prohibited from possessing a firearm.
Handy also was arrested on a drug charge less than a year after Battista’s death and served time in state prison until his 2011 release.
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @jociavaglia
I am so upset with how the justice system did my son, first and foremost the DA knew Kyle was lying when they presented him to the grand jury. No body goes to jail without the DA prosecuting them. The DA Knew that Kyle was in jail all along. The DA promoted lies and deceit from the very beginning. Having Jimmy say he saw my son and Kyle walking down the street and they were working for him selling drugs and he had just given them product to sell that night. My question is how can that be if Kyle was in jail? Had James gutter, say the same story adding that Kyle and Cka'ron walked up to him and another person and they saw the both of them get into a car that Kyle was driving. How can any of this be legal? How can the Main DA just let this kind of crime go on. The reason they all of the witnesses made the same statement is because none of them knew Kyle was in jail at the time of the crime. They all committed perjury and so did the primary investigator. The DA knowingly and willing aided and embedded lies to the so criminal witnesses with promises of freedom. You send my son to jail for life on a lie that you created and Jimmy got set free on a 25 year flat, what is he doing now, nothing different than he was doing when he got that sentence. What is gutter doing same shit. Kyle Page still doing crimes. What about Kevin the victim? He is in the grave screaming there is NO JUSTICE for ME... WHAT ABOUT ME. See to him none of the convictions rates matter because he is still dead and his killer is still out there. The DA, The primary investigator Had other leads and did nothing. Those leads came from their informants that they actually have out on the streets. It is not innocent until proven guilty. It is for us, guilty until proven innocent. I'm more than mad. I am hurt to know how the justice in buck county promotes lies and deceits and gets a way with it. How the Judge knew full well it wasn't right and that it was all lies. All made from the DA office. How can you sleep at night? I don't understand and I won't and I'm not going away. My son is innocent and Justice needs to set him free.
ReplyDelete