Alibi Claimed for Suspect in Cosby Case

A 16-year-old alleged gang member now in detention in Norwalk claims he can provide an alibi for Mikail “Michael” Markhasev in the Ennis Cosby murder case, a California Youth Authority official said Friday.

According to spokesman Julio Calderon, the youth told a counselor Wednesday that he and Markhasev--both reputed associates of a Los Alamitos street gang--were visiting another friend in a Tijuana jail Jan. 16, the day entertainer Bill Cosby’s son was shot in an apparent botched robbery attempt in the Sepulveda Pass.

An attorney for Markhasev said Friday that his office was investigating the alibi forwarded by his client’s friend.

Henry Hall, a veteran alternate public defender, said defense investigators were seeking to verify the alibi provided by the youth, who is in detention at the Southern Reception Center and Clinic in Norwalk.

“We have our head investigator on it. We are going to investigate every lead we get,” Hall said.

Sandi Gibbons, spokeswoman for the district attorney’s office, said she would not comment on the alibi claim, citing a judge’s gag order.

Mexican authorities could not locate records Friday that would help confirm a Markhasev visit.

Virginia Kice, Western division spokeswoman for the Immigration and Naturalization Service, said the agency could not provide information from personal immigration files because of privacy laws.

A Los Angeles INS investigator has had Markhasev’s file since mid-March, law enforcement sources said.

Youth authority officials would allow neither the 16-year-old nor the counselor to be interviewed. They said the youth had been at the center since March 6 and that criminal records showed he would have been free at the time he said he took the trip to Tijuana.

But Calderon also cautioned: “We don’t know if it’s fact, or if he’s trying to help out a homeboy with a [false] alibi.”

Even if the youths visited the Tijuana jail Jan. 16, it is only a three- to four-hour drive from there to the scene of the slaying, which took place at 1:45 a.m., authorities noted.

Sgt. Manuel Rodriguez, who heads a San Diego police cross-border liaison team that traces fugitives or others missing in Tijuana, said there are several ways to investigate the claim. Mexican state judicial police can get records of cash machine transactions. Hotel registries can be checked. Phone numbers and addresses can be traced. And there may be a record of someone crossing back into the United States, he said.

License plate numbers are recorded around the clock by video cameras and INS inspectors who type them into their computers.

But even if the license plate number makes it into the system, there is no record of who was in the car, he said.

An INS spokesman in San Diego said that when people cross the border, even if they are questioned, no written records are kept.

Legal immigrants would simply show their green card. And confirmed U.S. citizens are not required to show documentation.