The Indiana Court of Appeals reversed an East Chicago man’s conviction on Nov. 4 after his defense lawyer never saw the detective’s cell phone re-recording of the security video.
Anthony Cobb, 32, may get a new trial.
In September 2023, he was sentenced to 12 years for burglary and attempted arson for allegedly going into his ex-girlfriend’s Gary apartment in March 2021 and setting the stove on fire while she was gone.
During the investigation, a Methodist Hospitals security supervisor accidentally sent 9,000 still photos of the security footage on a flash drive to Gary Police Det. JerVean Gates. It was turned over to the defense one week before the trial started.
During the two-day trial in September 2023, prosecutors said three times the video footage was gone — i.e. purged from the hospital’s system.
“Your Honor, this is the State’s best evidence,” a prosecutor told Judge Salvador Vasquez. “There is no video in existence.”
Vasquez accepted the explanation and allowed Deputy Prosecutors Jacqueline Altpeter and Keith Anderson to use five still images, plus the security supervisor’s testimony on what he saw and pulled from the footage.
Court records state the 12 minutes of video showed a car in the alley, then a “light,” i.e. fire inside the apartment.
But, as the state’s last witness, Det. Gates testified he had recorded a copy on his cell phone off a monitor, but it was too large to transfer. He had shown the footage to the victim at the police station, who identified Cobb on it.
Vasquez erred by allowing the five pictures and testimony when a cell phone recording of the original footage still existed, which was the better evidence, Appeals Judge Dana Kenworthy wrote in a 3-0 opinion.
“(Defense lawyer John Cantrell) never saw the video — before or during trial,” Kenworthy wrote.
“This severely limited his ability to effectively cross-examine the witnesses,” she wrote. “It also severely restricted his ability to lodge informed objections to the admission of secondary evidence. That the State provided the defense with a full set of photos in supplemental discovery makes no difference. Not only was there a dearth of evidence about how the system produced the photos, but the State provided the 9,006 photos only a week before trial, even though the case had been pending for over two years.”
It was “substantially harmful” to Cobb’s case, she wrote.
“The photos and testimony about the video combined were the “smoking gun” that placed Cobb physically at the scene sometime on the night of the break-in,” the appeals judge wrote. “The erroneous admission of the evidence was not harmless error. And because this evidence was highly prejudicial to Cobb, we hold its erroneous admission constitutes reversible error.”
Indiana Attorney General Todd Rokita’s office can appeal to the Indiana Supreme Court, or the case would be returned to potentially retry in Lake County.
Online filings do not show a future court date.
Prison records show Cobb is serving a 5-year sentence for a 2021 gun case. His earliest release date is in May 2026.
