The Baltimore City man accused of trying to kill his ex-girlfriend’s boyfriend said the boyfriend initiated the attack and he jumped out a window for fear of being killed.
Kazeem Akinyoade Akinniyi, 26, testified Thursday in Howard Circuit Court that Jefferson Bolden, 27, of Baltimore City, started punching him this past December after he arrived at the apartment on the 5900 block of Turnabout Lane in Columbia.
Bolden “pulled out a knife, and we were fighting and tussling with the knife,” Akinniyi said before Judge Lenore Gelfman in the second day of the trial.
“I didn’t know what he was going to do at the time.”
He said he didn’t “intentionally” stab Bolden, but Bolden was stabbed during the struggle.
Toward the end of the fight, Akinniyi said Bolden aimed a gun at him, but it didn’t go off.
He said he then jumped through the window, crashed to the ground and was crawling for safety because he couldn’t walk.
“I was scared that Mr. Bolden would come out of the building and kill me,” he said.
Officer Eric Ward, who rode in the ambulance with Akinniyi after the fight, testified that Akinniyi told a paramedic he had been acting in self-defense.
Akinniyi also said he still cared for his ex-girlfriend, Sharon Johnson, 26, of Columbia.
He said Johnson asked him to come to her apartment in the early morning, contradicting her testimony that she didn’t have contact with him since October 2007.
Akinniyi said December was the last time they saw each other and they still had some kind of “relationship,” although he didn’t live with her anymore.
The jury began deliberating late Thursday afternoon and a verdict is expected today.
Akinniyi is charged with attempted first- and second-degree murder, burglary, assault and related offenses.
He faces life in prison if convicted of attempted first-degree murder.
