Attempted-murder charges against a Denver man were dismissed Friday because the victim was shot to death in December and can’t testify.
Benjamin C. Thomas, 28, was accused of driving the car used in a June 2005 drive-by shooting targeting Kalonniann Clark. Another man, 28- year-old Brian Kenneth Hicks, has been charged with being the shooter.
Clark, also 28, survived that attempt on her life, but she was gunned down outside her Denver home in December, a few days before she was scheduled to testify against Hicks. No arrests have been made in her murder.
“Without her testimony, we really have no case to carry forward against Thomas,” said Lynn Kimbrough, spokeswoman for the Denver district attorney’s office.
Before her death, Clark identified Thomas as the driver in the 2005 drive-by shooting through photographs and made a statement to that effect.
Two attempted-murder charges were filed against Thomas in January. The delay in filing the charges and the fact that defense attorneys had no opportunity to question Clark about her identification led to the dismissal.
Prosecutors declined to comment after Friday’s hearing.
Meanwhile, the case against Hicks will go forward, Kimbrough said.
Hicks was in jail when Clark was killed. Authorities have not said whether they suspect Clark was killed to silence her as a witness.
“We’re not sure Hicks had anything to do with this, but we are not ruling that out,” Denver police spokeswoman Virginia Quiñones said shortly after Clark’s death.
According to court records, Clark told authorities that Hicks’ wife, Kimaya James, had threatened to “ruin” her if she testified against Hicks in a phone call three days before Clark’s death.
Hicks, who police describe as a gang member, has been identified as the owner of the sport-utility vehicle that police believe was used in the shooting death of Denver Broncos cornerback Darrent Williams on New Year’s Day. The Williams investigation is ongoing, and no one has been arrested.
In the 2005 attack on Clark, Hicks was charged with two attempted-homicide counts, possession of a handgun by a previous offender and illegal discharge of a weapon in connection, Kimbrough said.
Prosecutors allege that Hicks fired bullets that hit Clark’s car as well as that of a passer-by, resulting in the two counts. Neither Clark nor the other driver were hit by gunfire.
After the shots were fired, police found Hicks hiding in the 900 block of Bannock Street, wearing a bulletproof vest and carrying a gun magazine containing 10 .40-caliber bullets, according to court records.
“The circumstances are very different” in the cases of Thomas and Hicks, Kimbrough said. “Hicks was identified as a suspect early on. The charges against Brian Hicks stand as a completely separate case.”
In a separate incident in 2005 before the drive-by, Hicks allegedly shot at two women, one of them Clark, outside a nightclub, prosecutors say. Neither was injured. Clark was later threatened about testifying against Hicks in the nightclub incident, authorities say.
Hicks’ attempted murder trial is scheduled to start April 23.
Staff writer Kieran Nicholson can be reached at 303-954-1822 or knicholson@denverpost.com.
