Mr. Powell

WORCESTER —  The prosecutor and defense lawyer in the Patrick I. Powell murder trial offered the jury conflicting takes on the evidence in their closing arguments yesterday.

Mr. Powell’s lawyer, John G. Swomley, asked the jurors to find that his client, 16 at the time, was acting in defense of himself and a friend when he stabbed Daniel Columbo in the chest during a Jan. 6, 2006, fight a short distance from the 21-year-old Mr. Columbo’s home at 26 Carroll St. in Milford.

WORCESTER — Patrick Powell, a "hyper-vigilant" teen, was defending himself when he stabbed Daniel Columbo more than three years ago during a Milford street fight, his lawyer told a Worcester Superior Court jury yesterday.

But prosecutors say Powell, now 19, and his friend, Vinnie Ruscitti, had planned to attack Columbo near his Carroll Street home on Jan. 6, 2006. Ruscitti, who has been charged with murder on the theory of joint venture, will be tried separately.

Assistant District Attorney Eduardo Velazquez said Ruscitti led Powell and two other friends to Columbo's parked Cadillac and hovered around his car. At least one witness heard Ruscitti say, "Let's go (expletive) him up," Velazquez said.

At that moment, Powell was on board with Ruscitti's plan to attack Columbo, the prosecutor told jurors during his closing argument.

Snapping his fingers, Velazquez said the premeditation required for first-degree murder could happen in an "instant."

"They were four, he was one, despite those odds, Patrick Powell chose to bring a knife, and he chose to plunge that knife into Daniel Columbo's heart," Velazquez said.