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Porter lawyer will not attend town hall forum

His safety and presentation were issues at tonight's meeting about the hit-run case.

By ERNEST HOOPER
Published December 1, 2005

TAMPA - Defense attorney Barry Cohen says he will not attend a town hall meeting tonight about the controversial Jennifer Porter case.

Cohen wrote to organizer James Evans Wednesday that he was concerned about his safety and disappointed he would not be allowed to make a presentation.

Evans, executive director of the Tampa Bay Academy of Hope, organized the meeting to give people a chance to express opinions and ask questions about the Porter case and perceived inequities in the legal system.

The meeting is 5:30 p.m. at Beulah Baptist Church, 1006 W Cypress St.

Porter, Cohen's client, was sentenced to two years of house arrest, three years' probation and 500 hours of community service for leaving the scene of a March 2004 accident that killed 13-year-old Bryant Wilkins and 3-year-old Durontae Caldwell.

Still scheduled to appear on the panel are Hillsborough State Attorney Mark Ober, community activist Michelle Patty and Tom Parnell, attorney for Lisa Wilkins, the mother of the two children.

Cohen said in an interview that he did not want to put himself in a vulnerable position. He said he has received threats because Porter was not sentenced to prison.

"I understand the passion of anger toward me, particularly in the African-American community," Cohen wrote in the letter, "and thus I want to know what safeguards are being made to insure my own protection from those in the crowd who may have a different agenda other than the meeting's spirit or the purpose of the meeting. I do not intend to be in a position to have some martyr try to use me as his or her symbol of respect."

Evans would not allow Cohen to make a computer slide presentation or speak for more than two minutes, the limit placed on all panel members.

"I would want to have the opportunity to have an audiovisual capacity to demonstrate facts, not just opinions, that are relevant to this discussion," Cohen wrote in his letter.

Evans could not be reached for comment but has said he didn't want the Porter case to be tried at the meeting.

[Last modified December 1, 2005, 01:06:06]