Teen charged with shooting friend while playing with gun will keep his attorney

Kinta Stanton - one of five teens charged in last year's fatal attack on a Starbucks manager in an underground Center City concourse - will get to keep his attorney in an unrelated shooting case.

A prosecutor yesterday withdrew a motion seeking to disqualify attorney Lonny Fish from representing Stanton in a shooting last month, in which authorities say Stanton shot a friend while playing with a gun.

The prosecution had indicated in its written motion that it intended to call Fish as a witness because Fish had gone to Stanton's home after the shooting, and had then spoken with the media about his observations.

Yesterday's decision to withdraw the motion indicates that the prosecution will not be calling Fish to testify as a witness at the preliminary hearing - because Fish cannot be both Stanton's attorney and a witness in the case.

Assistant District Attorney Richard Boyd told Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner yesterday that "at this point," after having spoken with Fish, he decided to withdraw the motion.

The judge yesterday imposed a gag order, so attorneys could not comment on the matter.

Stanton, 17, is charged with aggravated assault in the April 8 shooting that allegedly occurred in his Logan home, on Smedley Street near Rockland.

A preliminary hearing in the shooting case is slated for Friday.

Separately, a hearing in which the prosecution was to ask the judge to vacate his earlier ruling sending Stanton's homicide case to juvenile court has been postponed to May 12. Stanton is charged with third-degree murder and conspiracy in the March 26, 2008, attack on Starbucks manager Sean Patrick Conroy. *