Slaying witness receives sentence
The key commonwealth witness in a Fayette County murder trial was sentenced Monday to nine to 18 years behind bars in accordance with a plea bargain made for his testimony against a criminal defendant in the death of a Connellsville man. Joseph Stenger, 23, of Connellsville apologized to Curtis Haith’s family for the role he played in the 21-year-old’s death on Jan. 27, 2001.
“I can’t take nothing back,” Stenger said. “I’m truly sorry.”
Judge Ralph C. Warman said he was appreciative of Stenger’s expression of remorse.
“The first step in rehabilitation is realizing that what you did was wrong,” Warman said.
The foreman of the jury that convicted Crystal Dawn Weimer, 28, of Connellsville of third-degree murder in Haith’s death on Friday said it was ultimately Stenger’s testimony that swayed the panel to convict Weimer.
Stenger testified that he was in the car when Weimer, 28, picked up two men and headed to Haith’s home with plans to beat him up. Stenger testified that Weimer organized the beating because she was angry with Haith.
The men, Stenger testified, beat Haith brutally. Haith died from that beating and the two men have never been identified.
As the men continued to beat Haith, Stenger testified that he wanted to stop it, so he walked over to Haith and fired a single shot from a stolen gun. The shot went through Haith’s cheek and out of his lip. It was not fatal. Stenger testified that until he talked to police, he believed that he had killed Haith.
Stenger pleaded guilty to criminal conspiracy to commit criminal homicide last year. His sentence was postponed until his cooperation in the trial was complete.
Warman reminded Stenger that if police are able to arrest the two men who beat Haith, the plea agreement calls for his cooperation in their prosecutions.
The sentence will run concurrently to various robbery charges in Fayette and Westmoreland counties. That means that Stenger will serve at least part of his conspiracy sentence at the same time as the robbery sentences.
When Weimer is sentenced next week, she faces a possible sentence of 20 to 40 years behind bars.