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Former death row inmate arrested during attempt to leave Hawaii

COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY
                                Isaiah McCoy
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COURTESY DEPARTMENT OF PUBLIC SAFETY

Isaiah McCoy

Deputy sheriffs arrested a former Delaware death row inmate Monday after he allegedly attempted to leave the state, violating conditions of his supervised release pending his trial for a robbery case.

Isaiah McCoy, 32, was arrested at the Daniel K. Inouye International Airport at about 8:50 p.m. Monday on suspicion of violations of conditions of release on bail, supervised release and discharge of sureties.

Deputy sheriffs detained him while he attempted to board a flight, said Toni Schwartz, spokeswoman of the Hawaii Department of Public Safety. McCoy is now in custody at the Oahu Community Correctional Center.

Transportation Security Administration agents called the sheriffs’ airport dispatch at about 4:35 p.m. Monday to inform them that McCoy went through a security checkpoint with a valid boarding pass for a flight to the mainland, Schwartz said in an emailed statement. “We want to acknowledge the collaboration and teamwork between the Airport Section Deputy Sheriffs and TSA agents, which resulted in preventing McCoy from leaving the state.”

In September, an Oahu grand jury indicted McCoy and Joshua Pulliam, 33, with second-degree robbery after they allegedly assaulted a 40-year-old man and took his watch in Waikiki.

Prior to Monday’s arrest McCoy was free after posting a $100,000 bail bond pending his November trial on the robbery charge.

In the wake of his arrest at the airport, the city prosecutor’s office plans to ask a judge to revoke his bail.

Second-degree robbery is a Class B felony that is punishable by up to 10 years in prison.

In 2012, a judge in Delaware had sentenced McCoy to death after a jury found him guilty of a drug-related murder. He was exonerated of the crime in 2017 after he was acquitted on retrial.

McCoy moved to Hawaii where a federal grand jury in 2018 indicted him on sex trafficking charges. Prosecutors dropped the case after they learned a case agent withheld evidence.

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