Man testifies against alleged accomplice in consultant’s death
WASHINGTON – Alexander Martos was direct and to the point Friday when he took the stand to testify in the Gregory Modery homicide trial. “Mr. Martos, who killed Ira Swearingen?” Washington County District Attorney John Pettit asked.
“I did,” Martos said.
“Who was with you?” Pettit asked.
“Gregory Modery,” Martos said.
Modery, 32, of McMurray, is on trial for homicide as Martos’ accomplice in the Dec. 12, 1999, slaying of Ohio medical consultant Ira Swearingen, who was on his way to Uniontown when he was killed.
Martos, 35, already has pleaded guilty to first-degree homicide in Swearingen’s shooting death and will serve life in prison as part of his deal with Pettit, who is seeking the death penalty against Modery.
Martos said he has known Modery since high school, and at times they and others would beat and rob men near the adult bookstore at the Kammerer exit on Interstate 70.
Martos described incidents before and after Christmas 1997 in which men were beaten and robbed. Martos said he would then keep their driver’s licenses in order to intimidate them.
“If they would go to the police station, I’d call them the next day and say I followed them to the police station. That was part of the deal, to intimidate them so they wouldn’t go back,” he said.
Martos was jailed from April 1998 until March 1999 after pleading guilty to robbery and other charges related to a 1996 incident at the adult bookstore.
Martos also said that Modery used lead-filled gloves to beat at least two of the bookstore victims.
He testified that Modery visited him while he was in jail in 1998 and told him about another incident in which Modery and two others attacked a man wearing a dress at the bookstore. The man ran away through an open field, but another man with Modery ran him down and cut his face with a hunting knife after tackling him, Martos testified.
In the Swearingen case, Martos said, he, Modery and another codefendant, John Shaker, borrowed a car from an acquaintance, Robert Petrick, and went to the bookstore.
“We took ski masks and gloves. …We drove back and forth showing Shaker the layout. We went back behind the mine. Greg and I got out and Shaker went back to the bookstore to try to lure (someone),” Martos said.
The men were going to call it a night, since Shaker hadn’t had any success, but as they passed the adult bookstore, several people exited the interstate and pulled into the bookstore parking lot, Martos said.
“Greg commented on it. He said, ‘We’re not going home until we get one done,'” Martos said. “We weren’t going to go home until we rolled a homosexual that night.”
Modery and Shaker stayed behind some paving equipment on a dead-end road near the bookstore, and Martos went to lure someone from the bookstore, he testified. He passed several times, flashing his taillights, and Swearingen followed him down the dead-end road, Martos said.
“Swearingen got out of the car and came around to my side. I punched him, but he didn’t go down,” he said.
Swearingen ran into nearby woods and returned with a board, but dropped it when he saw that Martos wasn’t alone, Martos testified.
Modery, who was trying to find the trunk release on Swearingen’s car, came over, took Swearingen’s keys and punched him in the mouth before throwing him into the trunk of Swearingen’s rental car, according to Martos.
The men then drove to Petrick’s house, where they went through Swearingen’s belongings and got his personal identification number for his bankcard from him, Martos said. He said that he and Petrick then went to a bank machine and withdrew $200 from Swearingen’s account.
“When we got back to Petrick’s residence, Greg was at the burn pile and Shaker was at the back of the car. Mr. Swearingen was in the trunk. All of his clothes were off of him,” Martos said, noting that Swearingen’s clothing was burned.
“We came to a determination that he had to go. He was somebody of importance,” Martos said. “We discussed it among all of us that he had to be killed.”
Martos said he was the driving force behind the idea to kill Swearingen, and he discussed it with Modery, Shaker and Petrick.
Martos said he and Modery took Swearingen to a location that Modery knew about in Greene County. On the way to the scene, Martos said, he changed his mind about killing Swearingen.
“We’re on our way down (Interstate) 79, and I say, ‘We should just let him go, drop him off.’ He (Modery) said, ‘What were you doing in Vegas, getting soft on me?’ …I turned around and pointed the gun at the back seat, and Greg said, ‘No, no, no,'” Martos testified.
Martos said that when they got to the site, he led Swearingen to the edge of the woods, shot him and threw him over a hillside.
Martos detailed the subsequent shopping trips he, Modery and Shaker made over the next several days. One trip also involved Debrah Levandosky, who also testified against Modery as part of a plea agreement with the district attorney’s office in connection with charges of tampering with evidence that had been filed against her.
In the ensuing days, Martos and Modery began to perceive Shaker as the “weak link,” and when they decided to burn Swearingen’s car in Greene County, Shaker declined to go with them, Martos testified.
“He heard us talking. He heard Greg talk about tying up some loose ends, and he knew what that meant,” Martos said.
Martos and Modery were arrested the next day after Martos used Swearingen’s bankcard at an automated teller machine. Martos said that if they hadn’t been stopped by the police, their next stop would have been at a hardware store.
“We were going to go to a hardware store to buy a couple of shovels. We were going to bury Ira and Shaker. We felt he had to go. I told Greg he could do Shaker. He said, ‘You brought him back. He’s your end.’ I said, ‘Well, you can have this one,” Martos testified.
Cross-examination in the case begins Monday at 9 a.m. Modery’s defense attorney, Fred Rabner, said he wasn’t discouraged by Friday’s testimony.
“Until you hear cross-examination from a witness in this trial, you can’t believe anything,” Rabner said.