Robert Smith testifies
 
Pollard’s good friend, Robert Smith, took the stand as the fourth witness for the state. Almy asked him to relate to the jury how he was approached by Cormier and Pollard about committing the armed robbery.
      Smith said, “They asked me if I wanted some easy money because they knew that I was having financial difficulties at that time. And they asked if I wanted to commit a robbery with them, and I was a little reluctant because of the nature of—well, it was a robbery. I’ve never done anything like that before.”
      Smith said Pollard made it sound easy. “Paul said not to worry about it that it was an easy job; all I’d have to do is go in and go to different locations of a house and pick up things, and Lionel would handle everything else. So I said okay, you know, I’ll do it.”
      Almy asked, “During this time, either before or after the robbery, was there any discussion concerning a prior incident?”
     Smith said that he was told by Cormier that he and Paul and the Sargents’ had robbed Dolan before and that there would be no problem. The reason they didn’t want Richard and Percy on this occasion was because Cormier and Paul didn’t trust the Sergeants’. They wanted to get away from them a little bit.
     “Now some point in time in 1985, skipping a head four years or so, you were approached by a State Police detective [Shuman and DA Almy] concerning this matter. Is that right?”
     Smith said the detective was Shuman and that at first he didn’t tell him very much about his involvement, but he was later indicted. He said Shuman then came to his place of employment and arrested him. An agreement was reached with respect to how much time he would receive for his testimony.
     Shuman and DA Almy interviewed Smith on December 30, 1985. The interview was 30 pages long and was recorded and it was six months after the arson/murder indictments were dismissed against Richard Sargent, Roger Johnson, and William Meyers.
End of first day.
 
Return