Court briefs
November 4, 2004 Jury deadlocked
A Fayette County jury could not decide if Christopher Leake of Uniontown was guilty of multiple drug charges lodged against him in three cases.
Wednesday afternoon, after a day-and-a-half of deliberations, jurors told Judge John F. Wagner Jr. that no further time would resolve their deadlock.
The panel seemed to have come to a decision in the case Tuesday, when they summoned the judge for a verdict. One juror, however, told the judge he was still undecided in his verdict and the panel returned to deliberate further.
Leake, 41, of 225 Michael St., is charged with three counts each of possession, possession with intent to deliver and delivery of crack cocaine.
Court documents indicate that an undercover informant working with police thrice met with him in the parking lot of the Holiday Inn along Route 40 in North Union Township in 2002.
According to police, on May 5, Leake allegedly sold 28.4 grams of crack; on May 16, police allege, he sold another 28.5 grams of crack; and on June 6, he allegedly sold 57.2 grams of crack to the informant.
The case will be rescheduled for trial.
Man convicted
A Smithfield man was convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in his Georges Township home on July 30, 2003.
Fayette County jurors found Douglas Wayne Stimmell, 37, of Rose Drive guilty of aggravated indecent assault, sexual assault, indecent assault and simple assault, but acquitted him of involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
State police trooper Sandra Soliday charged that Stimmell forced himself on a 28-year-old woman sometime during a five-hour period. Police also charged that he hit the woman three times in the face.
Judge Gerald R. Solomon, who presided over the trial, will sentence Stimmell at a later date.
Jury issues acquittal
A Filbert man accused of raping a South Union Township woman was acquitted on charges of rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse Wednesday in Fayette County Court.
It marked the second time James Darrell Gemas, 27, went to court for allegedly sexually assaulting the woman on Nov. 13, 2003. In July, jurors heard the allegations but could not reach a verdict.
State police alleged that Gemas forced his way into the woman’s home after she went outside around 1:30 a.m. to pick up windblown garbage cans.
Once they were inside, Gemas allegedly tied her arms behind her back and raped her for a short time before apologizing to her and showing her pictures of his children, police charged.
Jurors in the July trial also heard evidence that Gemas stole $18 from the woman and physically assaulted her. They convicted him of burglary and simple assault, and he was sentenced to one to two years in a state prison.
At that first trial, Gemas denied raping the woman.
Trial continues
The trial for a Lemont Furnace man accused of multiple counts of burglary, theft and related charges continued Wednesday in Fayette County Court.
Brandon Scott Bloom, 23, of 415 First St. went to trial in five cases, each of which deals with alleged break-ins in North Union Township. Court documents indicate Bloom and others were accused of stealing multiple all-terrain vehicles and tools between July 6 and 16, 2003.
Some of the ATVs were taken from garages, according to court records.
The trial will resume this morning before Judge Gerald R. Solomon.
Conviction upheld
The state Superior Court has upheld the second-degree-murder conviction of Matthew Kaguyutan, a Gettysburg man who killed Uniontown native Joseph Marcinek when he set fire to a Pittsburgh apartment building in 2000.
Marcinek, a 21-year-old senior psychology major at the University of Pittsburgh, could not figure out how to escape his burning apartment on Sept. 29, 2000, and died in the blaze.
Pittsburgh police believed that Kaguyutan was targeting his former girlfriend, Carissa Probst, who also lived in the apartment building. After the fire, Kaguyutan penned a note to Probst, and police arrested him. He later confessed, but claimed at trial that he was pressured into doing so.
Kaguyutan, 27, was sentenced to an automatic term of life in prison for the second-degree murder conviction and an additional 271/2 to 55 years in jail for other charges connected to the incident.
The decision was posted on the Superior Court’s Web site, but the full opinion denying the appeal was not posted online.
Kaguyutan now may appeal to the state Supreme Court, but the court does not have to hear the appeal.