PLAQUEMINE — An admitted drug dealer and liar told jurors Wednesday that he put his gun in the hands of the man who allegedly killed Herman Harris in Maringouin in 2024.
Javadda Lewis, who was arrested nearly a year after Harris was killed, testified on Aug. 12 that he drove from Vicksburg, Miss., picked up his friend, alleged hit man Johnnie Hicks, in Zachary and headed to Maringouin that night.
Lewis, who is testifying in an agreement with the district attorney’s office that will keep him from serving a life sentence, said he didn’t know they were going to kill someone. He came to Louisiana to pick up the three kilos of cocaine he was buying from David Brooks Jr. for $45,000.
Hicks, Brooks and Brooks’ sister Rilonda Brooks are on trial for murder, racketeering and a host of related crimes. They all face life in prison if convicted.
Harris was apparently asleep in bed when someone walked into his house and shot him in the head around 4:30 a.m. on Aug. 27, 2024. The killer used a throw pillow from the house as a makeshift silencer, discarding it outside after the crime.
Prosecutors say Harris was targeted because he was preparing to sue Rilonda Brooks and her trucking company, where he had worked. His hip had broken at work, District Attorney Tony Clayton said, when Brooks pulled him out of a dump truck and slammed him to the ground. He was recovering from a hip replacement surgery when he was killed.
The payment, Clayton told the jury in opening statements, was to be a kilo of cocaine fronted to Lewis and a truck and job at the trucking company for Hicks, who had been released from prison two months before the killing.
Lewis, 34, spoke before a packed courtroom in the trial that began two weeks ago, after more than a week of jury selection.
He said David Brooks first gave him the address to Harris’ house as the meeting location for the drug deal. He drove there and waited several minutes in his car in Harris’ driveway before Brooks told him to come to Brooks’ own house.
Brooks was trying to reach his sister on the phone, and while they waited, Lewis said, Brooks explained “He had something he needed handled with his sister. He told us he needed someone out the way.”
That was the first time he and Hicks had any idea what was being asked of them, Lewis said. The initial idea was that Lewis and Hicks would actually commit the crime a different night, but he said the two of them decided they wanted to go ahead with it immediately.
He said they drove back to Harris’ house, having been assured that the house didn’t have any security cameras.
“We just sat there for a minute before we got out,” Lewis said, explaining that he had the gun in his car’s console. They looked at the carport, knocked softly on the door and waited to see if anyone appeared. When no one did, they knocked again.
He said they “twisted the knob, the door was open.”
He said he stepped inside Harris’ house momentarily before turning around and acting as a lookout on the carport. He heard the gunshot and Hicks emerged from the house, dropping the throw pillow as he fled. They returned to Brooks’ house, where he used a T-shirt in his car to wipe fingerprints from the gun and then handed the gun to Brooks.
It was later found near a pond at the back of Brooks’ property.
Lewis said he never got the fronted kilo of cocaine, but the three kilos he bought were delivered to his brother’s house in Mississippi.
Clayton repeatedly asked Lewis if he was lying to the jury. He repeatedly denied it, insisting he was telling the truth. Under cross-examination, he acknowledged having said much the same thing in previous encounters with law enforcement when he was, in fact, lying.
Defense attorneys worked to distance Lewis from their individual clients.
Victor Woods, who represents Hicks, flat-out accused Lewis of being the killer.
“You did it!” Woods thundered. “You’re the one who shot him, trying to blame your friend – who thought he was your friend.”
Lewis denied being the killer. He acknowledged that it was his drug deal with David Brooks, his car and his gun.
Hicks’ DNA was found on a couch cushion inside Harris’ house.
Harry Daniels, who represents Rilonda Brooks, asked Lewis to confirm that he never met her and never talked to her. Lewis said he had no contact with her.
The trial continues Thursday.
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