On the stand, he began with the truck. He had purchased it used after the flood destroyed his older vehicle. Its registration was current. He stopped at Harper’s because he needed fuel and had arranged to speak with Ward there. The prosecutor asked whether he worked for any law enforcement agency. He said no. The courtroom heard the answer without the disappointed murmur it might have drawn online. He was a mechanic who had asked about his mother’s housing allocation. That was the full extent of the secret identity people had invented for him.
The defense lawyer asked about his frustration at the recovery office. Andre admitted he had raised his voice during one conversation several weeks before the stop. Asked whether he was angry that afternoon, he said yes. Asked whether anger might affect recollection, he said he could speak only to what he remembered and what the recordings showed. The lawyer suggested he had been embarrassed before witnesses. Andre agreed. He did not understand why admitting embarrassment should make his account less credible. The judge instructed him to answer the question asked, and he did.
The canopy recording played. Andre watched his own hands rise. He noticed something he had missed before: the nozzle fell close enough to his foot that he could have tripped backward when Rusk pulled him. He did not announce the observation. It was not part of the question, and a new detail seen on video was different from a memory of feeling it happen. When asked why he had not immediately disclosed his meeting with Ward, he said he had been trying to learn why he was being restrained. Nobody had given him time to understand the encounter.
Baird testified later under his agreement. He admitted sending Andre’s name and direction of travel to Rusk. He said he wanted the paper returned before the delivery discrepancies reached outside investigators. His lawyer had explained the consequences of lying, but that warning did not make his testimony self-proving. Defense counsel examined his incentive to cooperate. The prosecution placed the messages, call records, and timing beside his account so the jury could compare words against evidence. Andre listened from the gallery after his own testimony ended.
Pike’s testimony was quieter. She described what Rusk told her, what dispatch actually said, and the choices she made. The defense emphasized her disciplinary outcome and suggested she benefited from blaming him. She acknowledged the benefit of cooperation without claiming it erased her conduct. Her original recording supplied details neither side had to take on trust. Andre found it difficult to hear her explain her fear of contradicting Rusk. He understood the fear. Understanding it did not make the pressure against the truck disappear from his body.
During a break, Andre found Samuel sitting at the opposite end of the hallway. The shopkeeper held a summons folded around a parking receipt. They exchanged a nod without discussing testimony. Both had been warned against comparing accounts while waiting. Samuel asked whether Andre wanted more water. Andre said no, then thanked him anyway. It was comforting to sit near someone who had seen the same place without trying to assemble the same memory. Each would tell the court what belonged to him.
At the end of the day, Evelyn waited outside with Simone. She wanted to know whether he had been treated respectfully. He said mostly. She accepted the imperfect answer. They walked past reporters without stopping. Andre had said what he knew in the room where it could be tested. The world outside still wanted a cleaner sentence, an angry confrontation, or a declaration that he had already won. He wanted a meal and a few hours without somebody asking him to represent everyone who had ever been frightened beside a vehicle. His mother understood that request immediately.
Crane’s defense relied on the chaos of emergency recovery. Roads had washed out. Utilities failed. Contractors changed schedules. Families moved before placements could be completed. Much of that was true, and the prosecution did not argue otherwise. The question was whether disorder explained certified deliveries to named recipients who had not received homes, and payments diverted after those certifications. The jury heard about a difficult program through ordinary records rather than a speech about villains. That made the case slower and, for Andre, harder to look away from.