The FBI agent who flew to Cuba in November 2018 to pick up Montclair lawyer-turned murder suspect James Ray said the case was big news when the plane landed in Havana.
Special Agent Brandon Lackey testified Wednesday he was struck by the numerous television cameras that greeted him and a team of law enforcement officers when they arrived at the airport on the afternoon of Nov. 6.
Lackey was part of a team of eight U.S. law enforcement officials who went to pick up Ray, who tried to enter Cuba on Oct. 28, six days after he fatally shot Angela Bledsoe, his live-in girlfriend and mother of his child, at their home in Upper Montclair. Essex County had already issued an arrest warrant for Ray and Cuba detained him.
Lackey described how he landed in Havana to much media fanfare nine days later, for a highly publicized moment of cooperation between the two nations. The United States and Cuba have no formal extradition treaty, so Ray’s return to the United States had to be negotiated, Lackey told the jury.
“They walked us into a large conference room, and we were shuffled toward some of the officials there,” Lackey told the jury at Ray’s murder trial at the Essex County Courthouse in Newark. Cameras were pushed up to the podium, Lackey said, and there were Cuban officials dressed in military uniforms on hand to publicly hand over Ray to U.S. authorities.
“It was obvious they were expecting me to speak, and I gave a very impromptu speech, thanking the Cuban government for helping bring Mr. Ray into our custody,” Lackey told the jury.
After the speeches, Lackey said he got his first glimpse of Ray, who was seated in another room and dressed in a black suit with blue stripes and wearing a tie. He was placed under arrest, and minutes later the suit would be exchanged for paper scrubs, after a medic that was part of the U.S. team examined Ray and determined he was fit to fly.
“We were very much concerned about his well-being, whether he was properly nourished, and whether he might bring anything (diseases) back to the United States.”
Lackey said Ray had $320 in U.S. dollars and $15.11 in Cuban currency, plus a toothbrush and a wallet that was put in the evidence bag along with the suit and brought on board the flight home. Those items were turned over the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office.
Ray made small talk during the three-hour flight to Teterboro Airport, Lackey said, mentioning his military background as a Marine Corps veteran and his education. Lackey said Ray offered that he was glad to be going back to New Jersey to see his family, and that he’d gone to Cuba “to clear his head,” and had planned to come back to the United States in December.
Lackey said he advised Ray that he wasn’t the person to talk to, and that if he wanted to make a statement, someone from the Essex County Prosecutor’s Office would speak to him.
Ray has been locked up ever since, charged with first-degree murder and weapons possession. The state contends that Bledesoe, 44, was having an affair with a man in Florida and wanted to end her relationship with Ray. Bledsoe was planning to move out and take the couple’s six-year-old daughter with her on the morning of Oct. 22, 2018, when Ray shot and killed her at their home in Upper Montclair, prosecutors say.
The defense, which has yet to present its case, contends that Ray had several firearms on a coffee table that morning and was cleaning them, when Bledsoe picked up a gun and pointed it at him. Ray fired four shots at her in self-defense, they say.
Ray wrote a note to his brother detailing what he said happened, and kept a journal that laid out his version of the shooting. The journal and the note to his brother, along with numerous text messages that Bledsoe had on her phone, have all been admitted as evidence.
Earlier Wednesday, Bledsoe’s cousin, Brooke Dean, testified about numerous phone calls and text messages she exchanged with the victim over the course of her relationship with Ray. The cousin testified that she found Ray to be “condescending, arrogant, and controlling” in the way he treated Bledsoe.
“I didn’t like the way he was talking to her,” said Dean, who told the jury that she attended several birthday parties for the couple’s daughter at the Ray house in Montclair. “He was always so cold, talking down to her.”
Much of a Dean’s testimony centered on texts between her and Bledsoe during the last week of the woman’s life, when Ray discovered she was having an affair with Bakari Burns, an old college friend from her days at Florida A & M University. Burns testified about the affair on Tuesday.
Dean testified that during that final week, Ray texted a pre-nuptial agreement to Bledsoe. Although the couple had been together for roughly seven years, Dean testified that Bledsoe was meeting with a realtor and planning to move out, so she saw the pre-nuptial as a product of what she called Ray’s “delusional thinking.”
The pre-nuptial also contained an odd clause, she said. If Bledsoe was unfaithful, she would have to pay Ray $300,000.
“We actually didn’t take it seriously,” Dean said.
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Richard Cowen may be reached at rcowen@njadvancemedia.com.
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