Trial Begins in Porn Murder Case

Shocking as it is, the underground world of gay porn is not just teeming with sex and ambition, but crime and murder as well. Heck, gay porn site Fleshbot even runs its own (frequent) crime blotter. And yesterday, in the first day of the Pennsylvania trial against 27-year-old Harlow Cuadra, whose been charged with murdering rival porn producer Brian Kocis, one of his former stars, Justin Hensley (pictured), gave the jury a picture of just how much handgun-wielding fun Cuadra could be.

The Times Leader reports:

“Justin Hensley said he was out of work in April 2005 when Joseph Kerekes offered him a job as an escort for Norfolk Male Escorts in Virginia.

Hensley then began performing with Kerekes’ partner, Harlow Cuadra, in gay pornographic films and moved in with the two in July 2005 to help operate their Web sites.

“I grew to be a friend of Cuadra because he took care of me,” Hensley testified Wednesday during the second day of Cuadra’s capital murder trial before Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr.

Cuadra, 27, is charged with killing rival pornographic movie producer Bryan Kocis, 44, at Kocis’ Midland Drive, Dallas Township, home on Jan. 24, 2007. Kerekes pleaded guilty in December to second-degree murder and was sentenced to life in prison without parole.

Cuadra’s lawyers, Joseph D’Andrea and Paul Walker, are suggesting to the jury that three other people had more to gain from Kocis’ death, focusing on Kerekes.

Hensley, called to testify by assistant district attorneys Michael Melnick, Shannon Crake and Allyson Kacmanski, said Kerekes was more dominant in the relationship with Cuadra. Hensley quit when Kerekes fired several shots from a handgun during a fight with Cuadra in their residence.

“They wanted me to stay there and work all the time and not have a social life,” Hensley testified. “I was only allowed to leave on the weekends, and if I went out for a sandwich, I had to come right back.”…

Hensley said Cuadra and Kerekes produced mostly amateur pornographic movies they sold on their Web sites, and believed that if they filmed with gay pornographic movie star Sean Lockhart, they would rise to mainstream pornography and “profit.”

“(Cuadra and Kerekes) talked about working with Lockhart for a year,” Hensley testified. “Lockhart was in some very well-known titles … they would definitely profit a lot of money.”

Lockhart was a contract model for Kocis’ company, Cobra Video.

“The only statements I heard about Cobra Video was that it was their main rival; Mr. Cuadra said that,” Hensley said.”

According to the prosecution, Cuadra posed as an auditioning model and went to Kocis’ home and shot him. The trial is expected to last the week.