Sep 27, 2002 By Christine Haines 7 min read

WASHINGTON – The cross-examination of one of the key prosecution witnesses in the Gregory Modery homicide trial finally came to an end Thursday afternoon, after consuming more than a day and a half of the trial. Defense attorney Fred Rabner Thursday had John Shaker go over each of the transactions made on credit cards stolen from murder victim Ira Swearingen on Dec. 12, 1999, to determine whether or not Shaker had signed them. Shaker admitted to signing most of the receipts, had doubts about the signatures on several others and denied having made two of the purchases or any of the automatic teller transactions.

It is alleged that Modery, 32, of McMurray, Shaker, 34, most recently of Las Vegas, and Martos, 35, with previous addresses in Bentleyville and Monongahela, lured Swearingen from the area near an adult bookstore along Interstate 70 on Dec. 12, 1999, while Swearingen was on his way to Uniontown to assist with a knee replacement surgery.

Swearingen was beaten, robbed, tossed into the trunk of his rental car and later taken to Greene County where he was shot in the head and dumped over an embankment. His body was found nearly a year later by hunters.

Rabner alleged that two days after the murder Shaker and Martos had their hair cut in an attempt to change their appearances. He contended that it was Shaker, not his client, who was with Martos at the murder scene.

“I had no intention of changing my identity. I don’t look that different with my hair cut. I still look like me,” Shaker said.

Shaker admitted to using Swearingen’s credit card to buy leather coats for himself and Martos at Wilson’s Leather in Monroeville Mall.

“There were three of us there. Mr. Modery was there as well. All three of us were looking around. He came into Wilson’s Leather and he came into the jewelry store,” Shaker said.

Two store clerks positively identified Modery from the witness stand as one of the men present when Swearingen’s credit card was used in their stores.

Shaker admitted to using Swearingen’s credit card to buy a gas can on Wednesday, Dec. 15, but denied involvement in burning Swearingen’s rental vehicle the next day.

“I didn’t use the gas can. Mr. Martos and Mr. Modery did. That was Thursday, sir,” Shaker said.

Rabner contended Robert Petrick, another co-defendant, burned the car, not his client, asking Shaker if Petrick went to Julie Sprites’ house Thursday where Shaker was staying.

“Mr. Petrick was not over at Julie’s Thursday. The only ones at Julie’s were Mr. Martos and myself until Mr. Modery came to pick up Mr. Martos,” Shaker said.

Rabner also contended that his client was talking on his cell phone in Petrick’s driveway the entire time he was supposedly helping Shaker and Martos rob and beat a second man Wednesday night.

“He was with us and he wasn’t on his cell phone,” Shaker said of Modery.

In other testimony Thursday, a man initially believed to have heard the shot that killed Swearingen testified.

Rabner had contended that since the shot was heard between 10:30 and 11 p.m., Swearingen was killed immediately after being kidnapped and robbed, not several hours later while Shaker was trying to make purchases at the Belle Vernon Wal-Mart.

“I heard a gunshot that woke my wife and I up. I jumped out of bed and said, ‘There, someone shot my big buck.’ It was just before hunting season. I can’t ell you the exact day, but it was before the buck season came in, so it had to be in November 1999,” said Charles Henderson.

Lt. Larry Sammel, who works in the classification department at the Allegheny County Jail, testified that Modery listed his height as six foot and his weight as 220 when he was placed in the jail on Dec. 18, 1999.

Rabner has referred to his client as being 6-feet-2 on a number of occasions, noting that store clerks had described him as considerably shorter.

Sammel also testified that Christine Modery, the wife of the defendant, and Debra Levandosky, another co-defendant in the case, had visited Modery during December 1999. A total of three visits were logged. Under cross-examination, Sammel noted that in four pages of visitors listed for Modery since his incarceration, Levandosky’s name appeared only one time.

David Brazell, who said he was in the same section of the Allegheny County Jail as Modery for about three weeks in December 1999 and early January 2000, also testified. Brazell said he befriended Modery in the dining hall, offering him a place to sit in the crowded hall and providing him with extra food once he became assigned to the pantry.

“At first, he told me he had rode some people to use some credit cards. As time went on, I could tell there was more wrong than what he told me,” Brazell said. “One of the first things that made me suspicious of him was that he wasn’t telling me the whole truth. He had asked me to pay attention to the news, of what was going on in the media.”

Brazell said Modery became especially agitated over news reports about Swearingen’s car being found burned. Brazell referred to Swearingen as “the doctor that was coming down from Ohio.”

“When the car was found, you could tell he was nervous. He was pacing the floor more. He was nervous. You could tell he was panicking. The more he talked about it, the more I could tell he was lying,” Brazell said.

On cross-examination, Rabner noted that Swearingen’s car had actually been found before Modery’s arrest and he said that Modery was moved out of Brazell’s cell block before Shaker was returned to Pennsylvania from Las Vegas.

Brazell also testified to meeting Debra Levandosky.

“I believe I met a friend of his. I think he said it was his girlfriend – short, shoulder-length blonde hair, sort of attractive. He told her to flash me, lift her shirt and expose her breasts. She attempted to, but I turned my head. I really wasn’t interested. I got embarrassed, just like I am right now talking about it,” Brazell said.

Rabner pointed out that while Brazell initially told police Levandosky visited Shaker more than his wife did, the records only show her there once. Brazell stood by his account that she was there at least six times.

“Maybe that one just stood out in my head because it shocked me,” Brazell said.

Brazell said Modery also talked about the Swearingen case, though he never used any names.

“Four or five days after the car was found, he started talking about the guys he’d hanged with, how you didn’t mess with these people or they’d mess you up real bad,” Brazell said. “About a week after the car was found, he said, ‘Well, if they found the car but they didn’t find him, they probably won’t.’

“We had a conversation about beating homosexuals. That isn’t the word he used, but that’s the word I choose to use. He said these people were the ones who beat this man. He was still saying he just drove them around while they were using the credit cards. Most of the time he was either a nervous wreck, either asking me to watch the news, or generally panicking,” Brazell said.

Martos, who confessed in February to shooting Swearingen in exchange for a life sentence, is expected to testify today.