Potts trial continues

It was day three of the Evan Potts trial when the first eye witness to the hit-and-run death of Ian Sharinn took the stand.

David Langston, a flight attendant for Delta Airlines, took the stand shortly before 11 a.m. on the morning of May 11 on behalf of the prosecution to tell the jury what he say on May 15, 2009 at the intersection of National Boulevard and Park Avenue in Long Beach.

Langston — a thin, middle-aged man with graying hair — remembered the day well. He and his wife Lisa had just finished up breakfast at the Laurel on West Park Avenue and were making their way home. It was a beautiful mid-May day, and Langston had the window on his car rolled down.

He and his wife were heading east on Park Avenue and stopped at a red light at the intersection of Park and National. Langston specifically remembered that he was in the center lane, three cars back from the light. He was directly behind a blue Nissan Altima — Evan Potts’ car — when a yellow Porsche pulled up along side Langston. The driver of the Porsche — Ian Sharinn — also had his windows down.

“The gentleman driving the Porsche, I heard him audibly angry,” Langston recounted, saying that he heard the driver talking about being cut off and almost getting hit.

Langston said the driver of the Porsche got out of his car, which was when the blue Altima pulled into the right lane and turned onto National Boulevard. Sharinn got back into his car, Langston said, and followed the Altima across the right lane, and then waited at the intersection.

“My assumption at that point was that the driver of the Porsche would follow the Nissan,” said Langston. The Porsche waited at the intersection for a few seconds and then took off straight, Langston recounted. It was then that he saw the Altima driving north on National back towards the intersection, and assumed that Potts had made a u-turn. Sharinn’s Porsche blocked Potts’s Altima.

“At that point, the driver of the Porsche exited his vehicle and began to approach the driver of the Altima, Mr. Potts,” said Langston. He said that Sharinn was yelling at Potts — although he couldn’t make out what — and gesturing, waving his arms at his sides, which Langston demonstrated for the jury.

Langston said that Sharinn was making his way towards the driver’s side of Potts’ car, but never made it. “He never got past the front fender of the Nissan,” Langston said. It was a crucial testimony for the prosecution, which maintains that Sharinn was in front of Potts’ car when he was run over. The defense, led by Stanley Kopilow, says that Sharinn was banging on the hood of

Evan’s car.

Potts’s car lurched forward, Langston said, and stopped. Sharinn jumped back in surprise and lowered his arms. After a few seconds, Potts drove forward again, but this time didn’t stop, Langston recounted. It hit Sharinn, knocking him off his feet and onto his back, he said.

“The car ran directly over him, continued to make a left-hand turn, and the right-hand tires ran over the body of the driver of the Porsche,” Langston said.

During the testimony, Potts sat stoically with his lawyer, not speaking. Members of this family sat in the courtroom behind him to show support.

Potts’s attorney, Stanley Kopilow, spoke to the Herald after Langston’s testimony, giving his view of it.

“I think what became very clear is that, exactly as I said in the opening, Ian Sharinn gets out of his car on Park Avenue and tries to have a confrontation,” said Kopilow. “And Evan Potts runs away, and I think what was really clear from David Langston’s testimony was that Ian Sharinn lay in wait for Evan. He lay in wait, he blew a red light, according to David Langston, to box [Evan] in.

“I believe Langston is an honest man,” Kopilow added. “But like many eye witnesses, when you are seeing something as emotional as this, you miss stuff. You get it wrong.”