A jury in Multnomah County Circuit Court has found Jeremy Lenoire not guilty of all charges related to a pot robbery that ended in a chaotic shooting, resulting in four fatalities.
After 3½ days of deliberation, the jury reached a verdict of 11-1 in favor of acquitting Lenoire on two counts of second-degree murder.
The victims of the shooting, which took place on June 6, 2021, were identified as Mitchell Nacoste, age 31, and 27-year-old Kendall Gragg.
Defense attorney Alexander Hamlian announced that Lenoire, who has no prior criminal record, aspires to pursue a career in real estate and wishes to put this incident behind him.
“He wants to get back home and continue pursuing a professional career, and just put this behind him,” Hamlian stated.
The incident unfolded late at night when a group of masked gunmen invaded Nacoste’s residence located at 5042 S.E. Boise St. in Portland’s Creston-Kenilworth neighborhood.
Nacoste, demonstrating bravery, confronted one of the attackers, 24-year-old Donovan Lenford, managed to gain control of the rifle they were using, and fatally shot him.
In the chaos that ensued, another assailant, Eyion Willis, was shot in the back of the head as he attempted to flee, but tragically Gragg was also killed while lying on the couch.
Before succumbing to his injuries, Nacoste was able to instruct his girlfriend, Sara Jones, to lock the door and call 911.
According to the prosecution, Lenoire was implicated as the third man involved in the ill-fated attempt to steal about 100 pounds of marijuana from Nacoste’s home, a supply valued at a premium in Texas’s black-market scene.
However, the state was unable to present any surveillance footage, fingerprints, DNA evidence, or eyewitness accounts that could definitively tie Lenoire to the crime scene.
Hamlian brought forward an alternate suspect, claiming that a local individual held a grudge against Nacoste due to unpaid debts and had a connection to one of the deceased robbers.
Witnesses, including Jones and a neighbor named Cole Franke, provided descriptions of the third assailant, which Hamlian argued did not match Lenoire.
During the trial, the defense also suggested that Lenoire was present in Portland to attend social justice protests rather than to commit a robbery.
The state alleged that Lenoire, along with Lenford and Willis, traveled from Texas to Portland with a premeditated plan to rob Nacoste.
This trip, according to the prosecution, was arranged after they dropped their cellphones at a friend’s house in Texas and had a woman rent a van for them to drive north.
The driver of the van testified that all three men were armed but did not disclose the purpose of their trip during their journey.
Once in Portland, the driver took a flight back to Texas while Lenoire and the others allegedly engaged in the robbery.
Witnesses recounted that Lenoire returned to Texas just a day or two after the shooting occurred, with one woman recalling he referred to himself as the look-out during the heist.
Prosecutor Shawn Overstreet argued that there was insufficient evidence to support Lenoire’s claims of attending protests, suggesting that his hasty departure from Portland aligned more closely with his involvement in the robbery.
“This case is the epitome of gaslighting the evidence,” Hamlian asserted, insisting that his client was not responsible for the violence that erupted that night.
He emphasized that the blame should fall on the alternate suspect rather than Lenoire.
Members of the families of the deceased victims expressed their sorrow and anger upon hearing the not guilty verdict, grieving the tragic outcomes of that fateful night.
The trial has continued to spark conversations about gang violence, drug-related crime, and the implications of such cases within the justice system.
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