Court briefs
Rape retrial delayed The rape retrial for a 21-year-old former Uniontown Area High School football player was delayed Monday.
Christopher Lewis was granted a new trial earlier this year because a Fayette County judge wrongly forced his lawyer to go to trial unprepared. Lewis, of Farragut Street, Uniontown, allegedly forced himself on a 21-year-old homeless man on Nov. 3, 2000.
Testimony in his first trial indicated that Lewis lured the man to his home with the promise of women and beer, but ultimately raped him at gunpoint when they were alone. Prosecutors played a taped confession by Lewis at the trial.
He was convicted of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, terroristic threats, recklessly endangering another person and unlawful restraint. He was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in a state prison.
Conviction upheld
Fayette County Judge Ralph C. Warman filed an opinion affirming the conviction and sentence of Charles A. Fuller Sr.
Fuller, 36, was convicted of aggravated indecent assault for sexually assaulting a woman between 1994 and 1999.
Fuller, formerly of Fayette County, was living in Oklahoma when he was arrested for abusing the now-21-year-old victim.
In an appeal to the Superior Court, Fuller claimed there was not enough evidence to convict him and that his 40-to-90-month sentence was too harsh. Warman’s opinion, which will be sent to the Superior Court as part of the case, indicated that he believed that there was enough evidence to convict Fuller.
Warman also wrote that Fuller’s sentence was within the standard range of sentencing.
“The sentencing courts are given wide latitude in fashioning sentences. Although such discretion is not unfettered, a sentence that is within the statutorily prescribed limits will not be vacated and remanded for resentencing absent a manifest abuse of discretion,” wrote Warman.
The jurist called Fuller’s appeal issues “without merit.”
Cardale man convicted
Jacki L. Kennedy, 21, of Cardale was convicted of possession, possession with intent to deliver drugs and criminal conspiracy Monday in Fayette County Court.
The charges against Kennedy were filed by Redstone Township Police Captain H. Dennis Field Jr.
Kennedy was sent to jail at the end of her trial by Judge John F. Wagner Jr. pending sentencing at a later date.