Tyler Flach said he 'cut someone,' witness testifies in fatal Oceanside case

Everybody in Tyler Flach’s sport utility vehicle was “hyped” after they left an after-school brawl in Oceanside when Flach said something as he drove back to Long Beach that made his eight friends go silent, one of the vehicle’s passengers recalled Thursday at Flach’s murder trial.

“He said he cut someone,” Taj Woodruff, 20, testified in Nassau County Court in Mineola.

“It got quiet for a second and people were like, ‘Why would you do that?’” he added.

Woodruff testified under a cooperation agreement he signed with the prosecution after previously pleading guilty in a sealed court proceeding to a second-degree felony gang assault charge and a misdemeanor assault charge for his role in the melee on Sept. 16, 2019.

Flach, 21, of Lido Beach, has pleaded not guilty to second-degree murder, first-degree gang assault and misdemeanor assault and weapon charges following the stabbing death of 16-year-old Oceanside High School senior Khaseen Morris in the fight.

Testimony later Thursday from the forensic pathologist who performed Morris' autopsy bolstered the defense's contention that Flach stabbed Morris once and not three times as a prosecutor told jurors last week during opening statements in the trial.

Former Nassau Deputy Medical Examiner Dorota Latuszynski said Morris died due to a penetrating stab wound to his chest that perforated his heart.

The physician also said it was "more likely than not" that four other lacerations on the 16-year-old's torso area were caused by attempts to save his life.

Flach’s attorney, Edward Sapone, told jurors in his opening statement that his client, then 18, stabbed Morris just once in a “reckless” and unintentional way while throwing punches with a knife in his hand.

Sapone is trying to make a case for second-degree manslaughter, which has a top penalty of 5 to 15 years in prison, compared with a maximum penalty of 25 years to life behind bars for second-degree murder.

The Nassau district attorney's office contends Flach was acting intentionally and not just recklessly when he killed Morris.

Prosecutor Daryl Levy's allegation in his opening statement that Flach stabbed Morris three times was a departure from a previous account from authorities that Morris suffered a single stab wound to his chest.

The prosecution has suggested Flach also inflicted two other lacerations on Morris' chest that medical experts at the trial have described as superficial.

Morris' surgeon, Dr. Daniel Haller, testified Wednesday that chest tubes were inserted into either side of the teenager's body, accounting for two lacerations in addition to the fatal stab wound.

Haller also said that if a patient comes into the emergency room dead — as Morris did — he doesn't pay attention to superficial wounds.

"It is crystal clear that they have a big problem with intent and so three is a world better for them than only one," Sapone said in an interview with Newsday after testimony concluded Thursday.

Earlier in the day, Woodruff briefly glanced at Flach as he walked to the witness stand before giving the first public account of the violent 2019 encounter from the point of view of someone who was among those indicted in its aftermath.

Woodruff said he went to the fight in an Oceanside strip mall to back up Flach.

“He said kids were talking about him,” the witness added, saying he went “to catch his back and make sure he didn’t get jumped.”

Prior testimony has shown the prearranged after-school fight was sparked by friction with the jealous ex-boyfriend of a girl Morris had walked home from a party, who also was among Flach’s friends in the fight that day.

Three of those friends — Marquis Stephens Jr., 21, Javonte Neals, 21, and Sean Merritt, 20 — previously pleaded guilty to assault charges and are serving 1-year sentences at Nassau’s jail.

Besides Woodruff, two of Flach’s other friends also pleaded guilty to assault charges in prior sealed court proceedings and also could have been called to testify against him as cooperating prosecution witnesses, sources previously told Newsday. 

The prosecution rested its case Thursday after Woodruff and Latuszynski testified.

Woodruff acknowledged during questioning by prosecutor Ania Pulaski that if prosecutors decide he testified truthfully, he'll be able to withdraw his felony plea and only his misdemeanor conviction will remain.

In addition, he won't get a jail sentence and prosecutors will recommend that a judge grant him youthful offender status that will seal his conviction. 

Assault charges remain pending against Haakim Mechan, 22, whom Woodruff identified in court Thursday as his brother.

Court proceedings Thursday also revealed for the first time that Flach’s group of friends had a ninth member who wasn’t indicted after the encounter.

Woodruff testified that he didn’t see Flach stab Morris. He admitted he took part in punching and kicking a young Hispanic male who was part of the group of Morris’ friends from Freeport that brawled with Flach’s group.

Woodruff said he wasn’t injured in the fight but recalled feeling “something wet” on his elbow that turned out to be blood.

He also recalled a girl he didn’t know calling out his name and coming up to him while making a recording with a cellphone during the fight.

During a cross-examination, Woodruff rebuffed Sapone’s suggestion that what Flach said in his vehicle after the fight actually was: “Oh [expletive] I think I cut someone.”

Woodruff told him: “I heard ‘I cut someone.’”

The trial will continue Tuesday.