Smallwood waives preliminary hearing; case heads to Superior Court grand jury

WILMINGTON, Del. — West Virginia running back Wendell Smallwood, charged with trying to intimidate a murder witness into recanting her statement, opted not to appear at his preliminary hearing Monday.

His case now heads to a Superior Court grand jury, said Jason Miller of the Delaware attorney general’s office.

West Virginia running back Wendell Smallwood (4) during action against William & Mary as a freshman last season.

Smallwood’s lawyer waived the preliminary hearing in Common Pleas Court, which is not uncommon, Miller said.

During Big 12 media days last week, West Virginia coach Dana Holgorsen, who has been mostly silent on the arrest, declined to answer any questions about Smallwood’s capacity to practice with the team while he’s out on $40,000 bail. The coach continues to refer to his July 20 school-issued statement, in which he said WVU will “continue to monitor the situation.”

Holgorsen seemingly has left the door cracked for Smallwood’s return, considering the player’s name remained on the roster as of Tuesday.

Wilmington police claim that during March and May 2013—when Smallwood was a spring semester early enrollee at WVU—the player made multiple calls to a state witness attempting to persuade her to recant her statements implicating Zakee Lloyd in a 2012 shooting death of Wilmington resident, Manuel Oliveras, 51.

The News Journal of Wilmington previously obtained transcripts of Smallwood’s phone calls to an inmate at the Young Correctional Institute, conversations in which Smallwood said he was trying to find a witness and convince her to lie to police. The names of the inmate and the witness were redacted.

Jury selection was scheduled to begin Tuesday morning in the murder trial of Lloyd, now 22.

Smallwood, a 20-year-old rising sophomore who was projected to play a key role in WVU’s backfield, faces up to two years in prison if convicted. He was arrested in Morgantown earlier this month and extradited to Delaware.

Delaware recently toughened its penalties for witness tampering—increasing the maximum prison sentence to 25 years—but Smallwood’s alleged crimes occurred about a year before those new guidelines were enacted.

UPDATE 12:20 p.m.:

Zakee Lloyd has admitted to killing Manuel Oliveras, part of a plea bargain that suggests a maximum of 18 years in prison.

Lloyd entered a guilty plea to the lesser charge of second-degree murder Tuesday, just as jury selection was scheduled to begin.







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