Judge continues sentencing hearing
WASHINGTON – Washington County Common Pleas Judge Katherine Emery Wednesday continued the sentencing date for Alexander Martos, who has pleaded guilty to first-degree murder in the death of Ohio medical consultant Ira Swearingen. Martos was to be sentenced this Friday, in conjunction with a plea bargain that called for the 34-year-old man with past addresses in Bentleyville and Monongahela to testify against co-defendant Gregory Modery, 31, of McMurray. Modery’s trial has been continued until June 11. Emery has issued the order for jury selection for that trial and has said she doesn’t want any more continuances in the case that was last set for April 1. More pre-trial conferences are scheduled in the case, however, and it is possible that either or both sides in the case could ask for a continuance.
Emery has said she will have little if any latitude in sentencing Martos, since he pleaded guilty to first-degree murder and not a general charge of homicide, with the judge determining the degree. State sentencing guidelines call for a mandatory sentence of life in prison without parole for first-degree murder. District Attorney John Pettit said he would have sought the death penalty if the Martos case had gone to trial.
Martos is charged with homicide, aggravated assault, kidnapping, robbery, tampering with evidence and criminal conspiracy to commit each of those acts in connection with the Dec. 12, 1999, kidnapping, beating and shooting of Swearingen. Swearingen was on his way from his home in Ohio to Uniontown to assist with a joint replacement surgery the following day at Uniontown Hospital when he disappeared. His body was found nearly a year later in a wooded area of Greene County not far from Waynesburg. He had been shot once in the head, as other suspects in the case had described.
Martos confessed to shooting Swearingen, saying that Modery was going to do it, but Modery made him mad in the car on the way to the murder site, so he decided to pull the trigger himself. Modery faces the same charges.
No date has been set for Martos’ sentencing, but it will most likely take place after Modery’s trial. All but the homicide charge will be dismissed at the time of sentencing, though the district attorney’s office reserves the right to refile the additional charges if Martos appeals his sentencing.