Brunswick County ADA loses case; never subpoenas police officers

Bolivia, NC (WWAY) — The case file includes three subpoenas issued from district attorney Rex Gore’s office to three police officers at the Ocean Isle Police Department.

Smilowski lives on Oak Island and was arrested by Oak Island Police, which documents clearly show.

According to Oak Island Police Chief Van Eddinger, the subpoena’s were never served and Holden never issued correct subpoenas.

Eddinger says Holden did call the three officers, at the last minute, to take the stand, but never did brief them on the case, which was more than a year old.

Eddinger also says Holden called his department requesting an officer drive the victim to court.
The problem with that is the victim lived outside the Oak Island town limits.
Eddinger refused.

On the first morning of the trial, Eddinger says Holden called the department again, this time asking them to copy off pictures of the victim’s injuries onto a DVD. Eddinger says the time of the call was made 90 minutes before court was scheduled to begin.

On top of all the last minute scrambling, the jury wasn’t impressed with Holden’s arguments.

“The prosecution never proved the case,” said a juror, who asked to remain anonymous. “There was no way they were going to get anything but a not guilty charge on it.”

“That part of it was, seemed to be not well done,” he said. “The decision was made more on the defining the law, the defined law of assault by strangulation. I felt that he did it, but still, by the definition of the law, we couldn’t convict him.”

After just more than two hours of deliberations, the jury reached a verdict — not guilty.