A Pasadena man who is scheduled to stand trial next month in the death of his girlfriend nearly 15 years ago will now face additional charges at the same time.
Stephen Michael Cooke Jr., 43, is also accused of trying to get someone to hurt a man who he thought would testify against him.
Baltimore County Circuit Judge Kathleen Cox granted prosecutors' motion Thursday to combine the charges of murder and conspiracy to commit witness intimidation into a single trial, which is scheduled to start Jan. 20.
Cooke is accused of hiring two Colorado men to kill his girlfriend, Heidi Bernadzikowski. Bernadzikowski, 24, was found dead in their Dundalk home in April 2000.
County prosecutors allege that while Cooke was in jail this year on charges related to Bernadzikowski's death, he tried to solicit another inmate to hurt Grant A. Lewis, one of the Colorado men.
At a court hearing Thursday, prosecutors revealed details about what they said was Cooke's plot to harm Lewis.
Prosecutor Garret Glennon said Cooke mistakenly believed that Lewis was going to testify against him. Glennon said Cooke approached an elderly, "jail-savvy" cellmate to whom many looked for advice, to ask if he knew someone who could hurt Lewis.
The older inmate went to police with the information, Glennon said. Eventually, the cellmate wore a body wire to record discussions with Cooke, Glennon said, and made up fictitious people he told Cooke were going to hurt Lewis.
Glennon said Cooke asked his ex-wife to buy a "Green Dot" card — a prepaid debit card used as currency in jails and prisons — because that was how he planned to pay the inmates he believed were going to harm Lewis. She bought a Green Dot card at a Pasadena 7-Eleven, Glennon said, but didn't know what it was for.
Cooke's attorney, Tara LeCompte, argued that combining both charges in one trial would "muddy the waters" for jurors.
"They're trying to confuse the jury and prejudice the jury against Mr. Cooke to prevent him from having a fair trial," she said.
She called the cellmate "an armed robber with serious credibility issues" and said the body-wire evidence is inconclusive.
Lewis, whom prosecutors called a "middle man" in the plot to kill Bernadzikowski, was convicted in October of first-degree murder. The man investigators say strangled Bernadzikowski, Alexander Bennett, pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in March.
Police say Cooke's motive in Bernadzikowski's death was to collect a $700,000 life insurance policy he had taken out on her months before she was killed.
County detectives had suspected him for years, but he was not charged until this past March. Prosecutors said newly uncovered DNA evidence linked Bennett to the crime scene, and eventually Cooke was implicated in the alleged scheme.
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