Rutgers' Clark indicted in slaying

4/29/2004

PATERSON, N.J. (AP) — A Rutgers football player who allegedly earned his college tuition money by working for a street gang chief has also been accused of providing the man with the gun he used to kill a woman last fall.

Davon Clark, 21, was indicted Wednesday by a Passaic County grand jury on charges of murder, hindering apprehension and weapons offenses in the execution-style shooting of Johanna Abila, 25, of Paterson. He also was charged with child endangerment, which prosecutors said stems from a relationship he had with a 15-year-old girl that was uncovered by investigators probing the slaying.

Prosecutors said Clark gave a 9 mm handgun to Azmar Bease, described as the leader of the local Bloods street gang, and then watched as he shot Abila, a member of a rival gang, in retaliation for the slaying of another Bloods member a few days earlier. Clark then retrieved the weapon, wrapped it in a T-shirt and returned it to a hiding place, prosecutors said.

A former star at Paterson Catholic High School, Clark was suspended from the Rutgers football team last year after he was charged with stealing textbooks from a Busch Campus dining hall. He eventually lost his scholarship and was sentenced to 300 hours of community service, but was reinstated to the team in February.

Robert Mulcahy, the university's athletic director, and football coach Greg Schiano met with Clark Wednesday night, but both declined to comment at length on the charges.

Clark, a junior who was trying to win the starting center spot for the Scarlet Knights, was arrested in December on a charge of hindering Bease's apprehension in connection with the slaying. He remains free on bail, and authorities said they do not believe he is a member of any street gang.

Bease, 23, was charged with murder, burglary, theft, hindering apprehension, criminal coercion, witness tampering and weapons offenses and remains in the county jail on $1.5 million bail.