Upper Marlboro, Md. -- The lawyer defending a man accused of lighting his ex-girlfriend on fire is seen laughing and joking about the victim in live Facebook videos he has been posting throughout the course of the high-profile trial.
In a video recorded in his vehicle Wednesday just before entering the Prince George’s County Courthouse to make final arguments before a jury in the case, attorney J. Wyndall Gordon laughs with a colleague about an encounter with the victim in an elevator during the trial.
“You never know what kind of lies she’s going to say,” Gordon laughs with a colleague he identified as Diane Miller. “She might light herself up in the elevator and say we did it,” Gordon said while he and Miller chuckled.
Gordon’s client is LaQuinn Phillips who is accused of throwing gasoline on his pregnant girlfriend Andrea Grinage and lighting her on fire in an attempt to kill her and the couple’s unborn baby in September of 2017.
Grinage was burned over 70 percent of her body and was given only a 1 percent chance to live by doctors, according to testimony in the case.
Gordon has attacked Grinage in court by portraying her as a mentally ill woman who intentionally set herself on fire in an effort to get paid interviews and speaking engagements in the domestic violence community.
“There’s a big money in victim-hood,” Gordon told the jury Wednesday as outraged prosecutor Christine Taylor shouted an objection.
Gordon told jurors Phillips has been intentionally framed by Grinage and “corrupt” police investigators.
During the trial, Grinage testified that Phillips first strangled her, then doused her in gasoline and set her afire as she stood in a bathtub in her Capitol Heights apartment.
Investigators testified a second fire was set in Grinage’s hallway.
Prosecutors presented a series of incriminating texts sent by Phillips to another woman he was in a relationship with. In the texts, Phillips denied Grinage’s baby was his and he messaged he would “take care of the problem”.
Prosecutors also played a jailhouse phone call where Phillips is heard telling the woman that he admitted to his lawyer he was present in Grinage’s apartment despite lying to police about it.
However, there is no DNA or fingerprint evidence linking Phillips to the attack. Investigators also found no physical evidence of gasoline on Phillips or his possessions.
Jurors began deliberations at 3 p.m. on Wednesday.