photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Benjamin Mims is pictured at his trial on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Douglas County District Court with public defenders Allyson Monson, left, and Jessica Glendening.

A star prosecution witness in a fentanyl death case abruptly invoked his Fifth Amendment right to not testify Tuesday in Douglas County District Court, resulting in jurors being sent home early and raising questions about how the case will move forward.

Logan Hastie Morgan, a convicted drug dealer, took the stand for mere minutes in the case against one-time codefendant Benjamin Lerell Mims, who is facing charges of distributing a controlled substance causing the death of 18-year-old Mohamadi Thompson Issa Jr.; conspiracy to unlawfully distribute fentanyl; and unlawful distribution.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Logan Hastie Morgan briefly takes the stand during the trial of Benjamin Mims on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

The state alleges that Mims supplied the fentanyl to Morgan, who in turn sold it to Issa, causing the young man’s death. Morgan pleaded no contest in February 2023 to one felony count of attempted distribution of a controlled substance and was sentenced to more than three years in prison in connection with Issa’s death. The sentence was a reduced one in view of Morgan’s cooperating with the state in testifying against other accused drug dealers, including at Mims’ preliminary hearing in November 2023.

Called to the stand Tuesday to again testify against Mims, Morgan, in ankle chains and avoiding eye contact with Mims, who was staring intently at him, got no further than identifying his address as “the Winfield Correctional Facility” when his attorney, Razmi Tahirkheli, appeared from the gallery and objected. A long meeting in the judge’s chambers then ensued, and it was later revealed, outside the jury’s presence, that Morgan had invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination.

The question then arose whether the invocation of that right rendered him legally “unavailable” to testify — Judge Amy Hanley said she believed that it did. The next question was whether Morgan’s previous testimony at Mims’ preliminary hearing two years ago might be read into the record by the prosecution in whole or in part.

Mims’ lead attorney, public defender Jessica Glendening, objected to Morgan’s previous testimony being admitted, raising concerns about hearsay and the constitutional right to confront a witness. Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald disagreed with that assessment.

Hanley then ordered the parties to prepare a specific list of evidence related to the preliminary hearing and whether the defense objected and how the state would respond. She said she would research the matter and render a decision by Wednesday.

Earlier Tuesday, jurors heard opening arguments in the case, including numerous references to Morgan and the centrality of his testimony.

“Timing is everything,” Greenwald told them, repeating the phrase, which he attributed to Shakespeare, multiple times in his opening statement as he exhorted jurors to pay close attention to what happened when in a case that he said would involve connecting dates and times and “volumes and volumes of text messages,” most of them from Morgan, whom Greenwald acknowledged was once “a bad drug addict” in addition to being a drug dealer who had taken a plea deal in the case.

Defense attorney Allyson Monson, meanwhile, sought to plant a different theme in jurors’ minds. “Things aren’t alway what they seem,” she told them again and again during her opening, referring to her belief that police short-circuited the investigation by immediately accepting the “interpretation of events” supplied by Morgan and ignoring other avenues of evidence.

Mims “sits here accused of crimes he did not commit,” she said.

photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Police Officer Daniel Gray testifies during the trial of Benjamin Mims on Tuesday, July 8, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Jurors also heard from the officer who responded to Issa’s mother’s call about finding her son deceased in his room. He testified about finding drug paraphernalia there, including vape pens, scales, a bong and prescription bottles of Naloxone (a medication that can potentially reverse a fentanyl overdose) and alcohol.

Two professionals from a toxicology lab also testified about finding fentanyl and alcohol in Issa’s samples. A forensic pathologist who performed Issa’s autopsy and listed his cause of death as fentanyl and ethanol toxicity also took the stand.

As the Journal-World has reported, Mims had previously admitted guilt in Issa’s death, entering a guilty plea last May to the lesser charge of voluntary manslaughter and unlawful distribution of fentanyl, but he was allowed to withdraw that plea nearly a year later after it came to light that both the state and Mims’ defense attorney — the current DA of Douglas County, Dakota Loomis — had misunderstood Mims’ criminal history, which has a significant impact on sentencing.