Accused Conspirator Arraigned in 2009 Easton Homicide

Franklin Barndt was arraigned on a homicide charge Friday, one week after being named by a grand jury as a conspirator in a deadly 2009 city shooting.

Court records show Barndt was arraigned before Senior District Judge Elizabeth Romig-Gainer at the downtown Easton district court on one count of conspiracy to commit homicide in the death of Miguel Aponte at the Easton Cafe.

Prosecutors allege Barndt, 36, alerted another man to Aponte's presence at the bar, helped dispose of the gun after the killing, and later bragged about the part he played in the crime.

Jacob Holmes Jr., the man identified as the shooter in the grand jury presentment, has not been charged but is under investigation, according to police. His father has told local media his son had no involvement in the killing.

But Holmes and Aponte are connected by another crime: a 2006 shooting in Wilson that wounded Holmes and sent Aponte to jail.

That shooting—outside the former C.R. Fanny's strip club on Butler Street—also led to the death of Jason Oliver. John "Rue" Logan was convicted of killing Oliver and sentenced to 20-40 years in prison. Aponte, who pleaded guilty to lesser charges, spent about two years in prison.

He'd been out for just a few months when—according to the grand jury report—Barndt spotted him at the Easton Cafe on the night of March 30, 2009, and alerted Holmes. 

The report—citing Barndt's own testimony—says Holmes came to the bar with a gun and shot Aponte.

Another witness, a woman who was in a relationship with Barndt at the time of the shooting, testified that she had picked up Barndt and a man he identified as "Jake" the night of Aponte's killing.

She told the grand jury that Barndt seemed excited. He and Jake talked back and forth about how they were family, that they could trust each other, and that "payback was a bitch."

In the days that followed, Barndt had her drive to Wy-Hit-Tuk Park just south of Easton, where he threw the gun into the Delaware River. 

When stories about the Aponte killing began to appear, Barndt allegedly beat his chest and said, "I did that, I did that."

Barndt is already behind bars at the state prison in Huntingdon. Court documents show numerous convictions on his record, including guilty pleas for theft, terroristic threats, assault and escape. 

In the case of the escape, Barndt had been locked up at Rockview State Prison in Centre County on drug charges, but apparently walked away from the prison's forestry camp and headed home to Northampton County. He was caught 12 hours later in Wilson.