Ex-Delaware death row inmate found guilty of Oahu robbery

HONOLULU — A jury on Oahu convicted a former death row inmate from Delaware of robbery, more than two years after U.S. prosecutors dropped sex trafficking charges against him.

The jury found Isaiah McCoy, 31, guilty Monday of second-degree robbery in a 2019 robbery in Waikiki. McCoy and an accomplice beat a man and stole his watch outside a bar, Honolulu prosecutors said.

“This verdict sends a strong message that crimes like the one committed by McCoy will not be tolerated in Honolulu,” Prosecuting Attorney Steve Alm said. He added that his office will seek the maximum 10-year prison term when McCoy is sentenced in July.

McCoy walked out of Honolulu’s federal courthouse a free man in 2018 after U.S. prosecutors dropped a 10-count sex trafficking indictment against him because a federal agent admitted that he had withheld evidence and lied. McCoy represented himself in the case.

McCoy was convicted and sentenced to death in 2012. But Delaware’s Supreme Court ordered a new trial, citing errors by the judge and prosecutor at trial. A judge found him not guilty at a retrial.

Less than a year after his release from death row, he was arrested and charged with sex trafficking. Prosecutors alleged he forced, threatened and coerced young women into prostitution in Hawaii.

While awaiting trial, McCoy told The Associated Press at the Honolulu Federal Detention Center that he moved to Hawaii after he was invited to speak at a criminal justice reform rally.

A federal judge last year dismissed most claims in McCoy’s lawsuit that claimed he was wrongfully and maliciously investigated, prosecuted and incarcerated for the murder of 30-year-old James Mumford.