BURLINGTON — The accused leader of a murder-for-hire plot that killed a Vermont man more than seven years ago took the stand in his own defense and denied that he was involved in the deadly scheme or ordered the hit.
Serhat Gumrukcu did admit during his testimony, which began Monday and continued through Wednesday, that he lied to FBI agents who questioned him during the murder investigation.
Gumrukcu, a biomedical researcher and international businessman, told jurors Monday during the fifth week of his trial in federal court in Burlington that he was not behind the Jan. 6, 2018, fatal shooting of Gregory Davis of Danville over a business deal gone bad.
Susan Marcus, one of Gumrukcu’s attorneys, asked him just seconds after he sat in the witness chair if he had told anyone to kill Davis.
“I did not,” Gumrukcu responded.
“Did you know that anyone was going to kill Gregg Davis?” the defense attorney followed up.
“I did not,” replied Gumrukcu, dressed Monday in a gray suit, white shirt and red tie.
Gumrukcu, 42, has pleaded not guilty to federal charges, including conspiracy to commit murder for hire, that could send him to jail for the rest of his life, if convicted.
His testimony this week represented his first public comments related to the charges against him since his arrest in May 2022.
Following the conclusion of his time on the witness stand Wednesday, the defense rested its case. Closing arguments are expected to take place Thursday morning, and then jurors will begin their deliberations.
Three other people charged in the alleged murder plot have already testified for the prosecution, saying Gumrukcu wanted Davis dead and financed the scheme. Those three witnesses had each reached plea deals that called for their cooperation in the case against Gumrukcu.
During his time on the witness stand, Gumrukcu was steadfast in denying that he asked anyone to take part in the scheme to kill Davis. But he repeatedly admitted to past wrongdoing, including lying in business deals and paying to obtain a medical degree from a Russian university without doing the required training.
He said of one person he went into business with, “I misappropriated his money to try to cover my tracks.”
As for paying money to obtain a medical degree from a Russian university without doing the needed training, Gumrukcu testified: “It was cheating, of course.”
“I was arrogant,” he added. “I thought I could decide what I wanted to learn.”
Gumrukcu, a Turkish national who had lived in Los Angeles for nearly a decade as a permanent U.S. resident, told jurors he traveled the world “treating patients” and befriending royalty along the way who had heard of him “through word of mouth.” He also testified about his work researching incurable diseases and providing unorthodox treatments, including the use of leeches to help battle illnesses.
Gumrukcu’s attorneys called several witnesses during the defense case — from business owners to a Hollywood movie producer — who spoke of his skill as a caregiver and work as a “peaceful” healer.
During cross-examination by Assistant U.S. Attorney Paul Van de Graaf, a prosecutor in the case, Gumrukcu admitted that he did not have the proper medical license while treating a cancer patient in the United States who eventually died.
Also, Gumrukcu testified under questioning from the prosecutor that he accepted more than $150,000 from that man’s family for his care and only paid the money back after they sued him to recoup the funds.
Gumrukcu told jurors he met one of the key witnesses who testified against him, Berk Eratay, many years ago. They had shared an interest in magic, he said, adding that they both performed professionally in Turkey and were particularly practiced in mind reading.
Eratay, who also eventually moved to the United States, was living in Las Vegas when he was arrested in the murder plot in May 2022. Eratay has already testified over parts of four days in the trial, telling jurors that Gumrukcu had asked him for help finding someone to kill Davis and then provided the money to pay for the deadly hit.
Prosecutors alleged during the trial that Gumrukcu wanted Davis, 49, dead because he feared the Vermont man was going to go to authorities and accuse him of fraud in a proposed oil deal between the two men that never got off the ground.
The possibility of fraud allegations against Gumrukcu at that time, according to prosecutors, could have hindered, or perhaps nixed, a bigger deal he was working on for a stake worth tens of millions of dollars for him in a biomedical research company, Enochian.
Gumrukcu had already had trouble with the law when he was arrested in 2017 in California on more than a dozen charges involving allegations that he used forged records and false email addresses to obtain hundreds of thousands dollars, according to court records and testimony during the trial. He later pleaded no contest to a single felony and was placed on probation.
Prosecutors have alleged, in the murder-for-hire case and past business dealings with Davis, that Gumrukcu helped orchestrate the creation of fake email accounts and false bank and business records.
Van de Graaf, the prosecutor, asked Gumrukcu during his testimony Wednesday whether he was truthful with the FBI when they questioned him about Davis and his business dealings with him.
In response to questions from the prosecutor, Gumrukcu said he never told the FBI that Davis had been threatening him with going to authorities to report allegations of fraud against him.
“They never asked me questions about that,” Gumrukcu added.
He also testified that he made false statements to the FBI agents about other players involved in his business dealings with Davis.
“You lied in a murder investigation?” Van de Graaf asked him.
“I did,” Gumrukcu replied.
Eratay testified earlier in the trial that he had sought out a friend and former neighbor, Aron Lee Ethridge, of Henderson, Nevada, to participate in the plot, asking Ethridge if he knew someone who could travel to Vermont and kill Davis. Ethridge, during his testimony, told jurors he enlisted a friend, Jerry Banks, of Fort Garland, Colorado, to kill Davis.
Banks testified during the trial that he traveled to Davis’ Danville home and, pretending to be a U.S. Marshal with a warrant for his arrest, kidnapped Davis, drove him away from the home and fatally shot him. Davis’ body was found by authorities the next day near a pull-off along the road in Barnet, about a dozen miles from Davis’ residence.
Eratay, Ethridge and Banks face decades in prison when they are sentenced later in the year, but each testified during the trial they were hopeful their jail terms would be lessened due to their cooperation in the case against Gumrukcu.
Gumrukcu testified that large sums of money transferred to Eratay in the months leading up to Davis’ killing, including one payment of $75,000, were to not to finance the murder plot, but to help a friend out who was starting up a cryptocurrency business.
Gumrukcu said he considered Eratay like a “little brother” to him and wanted to assist him in getting that venture off the ground.
“I wanted him to be happy,” Gumrukcu told the jurors of Eratay.
Van de Graaf walked Gumrukcu through several business deals he was involved in, and grilled him on email exchanges he had with other players in them.
At one point, Gumrukcu responded to a question posed by the prosecutor that there were “so many lies” he had a hard time remembering them all.
