The ex-wife of a man accused of possessing an imitation firearm told a Grand Court jury on Monday that he had pointed a gun at her during an argument about them getting back together, and had sent her videos of him on the roof of her house posing with the gun.
Cory Shamar Pusey, 34, denies the charge.
His lawyer, Clinton Phuran, argued that Pusey’s former wife is making up the allegations, which he said she first made to police following a physical fight in July 2023 between her, her boyfriend and Pusey.
The woman, who took the stand to give testimony on the first day of the four-day trial, told the jury of four women and three men that Pusey had come to her house in Bodden Town late one night, between 11:30pm and midnight, in April 2022.
She went out to speak to him and the oft-repeated argument about them reconciling came up. She said she told him again she did not want to be with him.
‘I’d had enough’
“I began telling him that I’d had enough,” she said, and started to move back towards the house. She said she heard the sound of a gun being cocked, and when she turned back around, “Cory was pointing a gun at me.”
She said he pointed the gun at her for “not less than 60 seconds”.
She was still close to him, within 5 feet, and, she said, by the light of the nearby street lamps, could clearly see the weapon, which was “silverish” in colour.
Under questioning by Crown prosecutor Shauna-Kaye James, the witness told the court, “I asked him if he was going to really shoot me. I then began to say this is the reason why I don’t want to be with you. I don’t trust you.
“He started to apologise and said he just wanted to talk.”
At that point, he lowered the gun, she said.
After that, he left, but then tried to call her on her phone, she said.
She did not report the incident to police that night, she told the court, because he was the father of her children, whom they co-parent, and she did not want to deprive the kids of their father.
Videos
She told the prosecutor that Pusey had also sent her videos of him holding the gun on the roof of her house. She had forwarded those two videos to a police officer on 8 July 2023, after calling police following the fight at her home between herself, Pusey and her boyfriend.
The court heard that the phone on which she had received the videos had been destroyed when she dropped it and could not get it repaired. In response to questions from Justice Cheryll Richards, she said she did not know where the phone was now as the last time she had seen it, her children had been playing with it.
Asked why she called police about Pusey following the fight, she said it was because she felt it was not only her life that was in danger this time, it was now also her boyfriend’s.
The jurors were shown the two short video segments, which the ex-wife said Pusey had sent her via WhatsApp. The videos shows Pusey, dressed in a long-sleeved white Tommy Hilfiger top, apparently filming himself on his phone waving a gun in front of him and pointing it at the camera.
She said she knew the video was shot on her rooftop because she could see her neighbours’ homes in the background.
She told the court the videos clips of Pusey on the roof of the house with the gun had been sent to her “about a month or two” before the alleged encounter in April 2022 when he pointed the gun at her.
Accusations of lying
Pusey’s attorney, Phuran, in his cross-examination of the witness, pointed to inconsistencies between her police statement and her testimony in court, and repeatedly accused her of lying, suggesting that her allegations were revenge for Pusey cheating on her many times during their marriage.
The couple divorced in August last year, following 12 years of marriage.
The ex-wife insisted she was telling the truth. “At the end of the day, he’s still my kids’ father. I would not make up these serious allegations against him,” she said.
Phuran put it to her that in her statement to police, made following the fight in July, she had described the gun that she said was pointed at her in April 2022 as being dark coloured. He accused her of changing her description of the gun to silver during her testimony because the gun seen in the video was silver.
She had told the court earlier that she had seen guns on TV and at a firing range she visited in the United States. Phuran suggested that her initial description of the gun to police had been based on a gun she had posed with at the gun range, which was dark coloured.
The case continues before Justice Richards.
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