photo by: Kim Callahan/Journal-World

Public defender Jessica Glendening, center, is picture with her co-counsel, Allyson Monson, and Deputy DA David Greenwald on Wednesday, July 9, 2025.

An attorney for a drug dealer accused in a teenager’s death introduced no evidence of racial prejudice during the man’s two-day trial but nevertheless suggested to jurors during her closing argument that her client was being targeted because he’s a “big, scary Black man.”

The remarks, from public defender Jessica Glendening in the Benjamin Mims case Thursday, drew a sharp rebuttal from Douglas County Deputy District Attorney David Greenwald, who objected to the statement, which was made during the final minute of Glendening’s closing argument.

photo by: Chris Conde/Journal-World

Benjamin L. Mims appears at a hearing on April 25, 2025, in Douglas County District Court.

Greenwald, in his rebuttal, took to the floor and explosively emphasized to the jury that the case was “not about race!” No witnesses during the trial had suggested Mims was targeted because he is Black, Greenwald said, noting to jurors that Glendening’s opinions are not evidence.

The jury of six men and six women appeared to include at least three people of color. They received the case shortly after 10:30 a.m. and began deliberating.

Mims, 37, is accused of supplying fentanyl pills to 18-year-old Mohamadi Tompson Issa Jr., who died of an overdose at his family’s Lawrence home on Aug. 28, 2021. The state contends that Mims sold the drugs to Logan Hastie Morgan, who then sold them to Issa.

Morgan, who received a favorable plea deal in exchange for testifying against Mims, was a principal witness in the case, both during Mim’s preliminary hearing and in his current trial. In the latter, Mims invoked his Fifth Amendment right against self-incrimination, but much of his testimony from the earlier hearing was read into the trial record.

Glendening’s account is that police zeroed in on Mims based on Morgan’s unreliable information and failed to explore other investigative avenues, including actively ignoring evidence “they didn’t like.”

“Things aren’t always what they seem,” she said, reprising a theme from her co-counsel’s opening statement. “When you look closer, the whole thing falls apart.”

Specifically, she said that the state had only proved that Issa died with fentanyl in his system, but that where “that exact fentanyl” came from was a mystery and that the only thing linking her client to the drug enterprise of Morgan, a severe drug addict with memory problems, was Morgan’s say-so.

“Almost 17 years is serious incentive to point the finger at someone else,” she said of Morgan, who had originally faced a potential 20 years in prisons instead of the three and a half he received via his plea deal to testify against Mims.

Greenwald told jurors that an array of text messages and phone calls around the time of Issa’s death, as well as testimony from law enforcement, led straight to Mims.

As the Journal-World has reported, Mims earlier pleaded guilty to voluntary manslaughter in Issa’s death, but he was allowed to withdraw that plea due to a misunderstanding of how much time he would face in prison.

Mims was on federal parole at the time of Issa’s overdose. He was convicted in 2019 in federal court of felony possession with the intent to distribute heroin and was also convicted in 2009 for felony possession of narcotics in Douglas County. He also has multiple felony convictions for aggravated robbery, theft and burglary.

This is a developing story and will be updated.