DISTRICT COURT OF APPEAL OF THE STATE OF FLORIDA FOURTH DISTRICT JAMES GENTRY, Appellant, v. STATE OF FLORIDA, Appellee. No. 4D19-787 [July 22, 2020] Appeal from the Circuit Court for the Seventeenth Judicial Circuit, Broward County; Michael A. Usan, Judge; L.T. Case No. 12005038CF10A. Carey Haughwout, Public Defender, and Ian Seldin, Assistant Public Defender, West Palm Beach, for appellant. Ashley Moody, Attorney General, Tallahassee, and Jeanine Germanowicz, Assistant Attorney General, West Palm Beach, for appellee. GROSS, J. James Gentry appeals his life sentence for one count of first degree murder. We write to address Gentry’s claim that the trial court committed fundamental error by precluding him from testifying about his brother’s confession. We hold that no fundamental error occurred as a result of the trial court sustaining the state’s hearsay objection to Gentry’s testimony concerning his brother’s inculpatory out-of-court statements. We affirm. At trial, the state contended that appellant, an admitted male prostitute, and his brother, Timothy Gentry, went home with the victim after meeting him at a gay bar. The victim refused to pay appellant for prostitution services rendered and told the brothers they had to leave. In response, appellant bound the victim’s arms and legs, placed a cloth gag over the victim’s mouth, took some of the victim’s possessions, and left the victim in a position that ultimately caused him to die from asphyxiation, in what the medical examiner described as a “protracted very long death.” The Trial Testimony of Timothy Gentry The state’s primary witness at trial was appellant’s brother and codefendant, Tim Gentry. The brother admitted to being a convicted felon and was incarcerated at the time of trial. The brother stated that he had resolved the first degree murder charge against him in this case. As part of his deal with the state, he pled guilty to the crime of second degree murder and was required to testify at appellant’s trial. On the murder charge, he was sentenced to ten years in prison to be served concurrently with a twenty-year term of probation. The brother indicated that one condition of his plea agreement was that the state would waive the death penalty for appellant. The brother testified that he and appellant drifted to Florida to look for work. On December 20, 2008, he and appellant, who both worked in construction, were preparing to sleep in their car in a Home Depot parking lot in order to obtain work in the morning. Immigration officers appeared at the parking lot, and everyone in the parking lot ran off. Next, appellant and his brother went to a gay country western bar so that appellant, who had worked as a male prostitute, could earn money by engaging in sex acts with other men. Before the Gentrys met the victim, appellant had already left the bar with a male client and returned. The Gentrys met the victim inside the bar around midnight. The brother said that he was looking for a place to sleep other than the car. The victim ...
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