A Manhattan judge turned down a guilty plea by the so-called “Harlem Kevorkian” on Tuesday, seeing through the self professed mercy killer’s bid to evade murder charges by trying for a double jeopardy loophole.
Manhattan Supreme Court Justice Laura Ward rejected Kenneth Minor’s guilty plea to a new second-degree manslaughter indictment after ruling to combine the lesser charge with an existing murder indictment.
The judge said the ex-con would have to cop to both charges in the brutal 2009 stabbing death of Jeffrey Locker, a motivational speaker who offered Minor money if he killed him and made it look like a robbery gone wrong.
Minor’s 2011 murder conviction was overturned because the Appellate Division found the trial judge improperly instructed the jury on assisted suicide.
“I cannot accept a plea of guilty … on one count,” said Ward.
Defense lawyer Daniel Gotlin raised the possibility of double jeopardy if Minor had been allowed to cop to the lesser charge Tuesday. That manslaughter charge was not included in the first trial.
Gotlin said prosecutors were trying to “gain a tactical advantage” because a jury would likely find Minor — who admits he helped the married Long Island dad end his life in his SUV outside East Harlem housing projects in — guilty of the lesser charge.
Locker concocted the scheme so that his family could cash in on an $18 million insurance policy.
Minor returns to court April 23.