TRENT BENEFIELD suffers from a mental affliction known to erase the memories of unemployed, young men who have big lawsuits pending against large governmental bodies.
It’s called “iwantfiftymillionitis.”
Before he was struck by this horrid memory lapse, Benefield was in a hospital bed on Nov. 25, 2006 – hours after his pal Sean Bell was shot dead by cops who wrongly thought he had a gun.
But then Benefield still remembered a few things.
“Did you not tell the people in the hospital that you, Trent Benefield, used marijuana on a daily basis for the last six years?” defense lawyer Anthony Ricco demanded.
Benefield mumbled and shook his head, “No.”
So Ricco displayed a medical record on a projector. It said, in typed and handwritten notes: “Smoker: Marijuana. Daily six years.”
“Yes, but I didn’t tell ’em that,” Benefield countered.
“I didn’t count the years.”
At this point, Bell’s father, William, dropped his head in agony.
A symptom common to sufferers of iwantfiftymillionitis: One’s intelligence wanes in proportion to his greed.
Ricco continued, “Did you tell the people in the hospital that you drank every day at least four beers?”
Again, Benefield grunted, “No.” Again, a record popped onscreen. “Four beers.”
Whatever he was drinking or smoking that night, it can’t explain Benefield’s leaky memory about the moment Sean Bell attempted to “get away” from the Kalua club.
Yesterday, Benefield insisted that as he popped into the back seat of his buddy’s Nissan, he only remembers the car “bumping” into one object.
Could that object have been Detective Gescard Isnora?
But back in 2006, Benefield described a chaotic scene of bumper cars. He said Bell’s car struck not one, not two – but three – vehicles.
“On the tape recorder, we hear you say in your own voice that the car is backing up and hitting things and the car is going forward and hitting things. Is that the truth? Or are you just making it up?” Ricco demanded.
“No, it ain’t the truth,” answered Benefield. “Because that didn’t happen.”
Ricco: “You made that up?”
Benefield, angrily: “Yes.”
One thing that happened is that Benefield filed a $50 million lawsuit against the city.
Also, Benefield received at least $10,000 from Al Sharpton’s National Action Network.
“How much of that went to your marijuana addiction?” asked defense lawyer Paul Martin.
Benefield said none. But he still smokes pot.
He sneered when asked if the National Action Network bought his drugs for him.
“I buy them,” he insisted.
Fifty mil buys a lot of weed.