Prinkey found guilty of voluntary manslaughter
Following about three hours of deliberations Thursday, a Fayette County jury convicted Raymond “Mike” Prinkey of voluntary manslaughter for killing his estranged wife’s boyfriend in 2005. Prinkey, 50, of Normalville stared straight ahead as the verdict was announced around 4:15 p.m. He shot James Cononico in the head on Oct. 19, 2005, at the East Washington Avenue apartment of his wife, Lori Prinkey.
After the verdict was handed down, Judge Ralph C. Warman revoked Prinkey’s bond and committed him to the county lockup until his May 30 sentencing. The conviction carries a minimum sentence of five to 10 years and a maximum sentence of 10 to 20 years.
Cononico, 50, and Lori Prinkey were involved in an affair that started after Cononico was released from prison in August 2005. Mike Prinkey told jurors that when he found out his was being unfaithful after she moved out of their home, he was enraged.
Prinkey also told jurors that he and Cononico scuffled for the 9mm handgun Mike Prinkey brought to his wife’s apartment. After he gained control of the gun, Prinkey testified that Cononico stood with his arms raised and his back to him for a short time.
Then Cononico suddenly turned as if to take the gun, he said. Prinkey testified he fired the weapon, concerned that Cononico would take it and shoot him. The bullet entered behind Cononico’s left ear and came out above his right eyebrow.
Prinkey’s defense attorney, David Shrager, had asked jurors acquit him based on that self-defense claim. Shrager argued that the path of the bullet supported Prinkey’s testimony that he only fired on Cononico when he turned around.
District Attorney Nancy D. Vernon, in her closing remarks, told jurors that to find self-defense, they must believe that Prinkey did not spark the situation himself. She also said that Prinkey would have to be met with deadly force to justifiably use deadly force.
As he did in his opening, Shrager told the jury that “at best” they could return with a voluntary manslaughter verdict. Voluntary manslaughter encompasses both a killing in the heat of passion and imperfect self-defense.
“Mike Prinkey had a fraction of a second to decide what action to take,” Shrager said.
Shrager told jurors that Prinkey’s “extreme rage” at the time of the shooting negated the malice necessary for murder. Prinkey testified he had seen a man in his wife’s apartment the day before and after a fitful night’s sleep, returned the morning of Oct. 19, 2005.
When he saw a man walk out of Lori Prinkey’s home early that morning, Prinkey testified his worst fears were confirmed. While he told jurors that he trekked back to his Normalville home and then returned to his wife’s apartment, he is clearly heard in a 911 tape made during the 6 a.m. shooting telling his wife that he was outside on her porch for an hour.
While he acknowledged that the 911 recording of Prinkey in his wife’s apartment “was rough,” Shrager told jurors they could not base their decision on emotion.
Shrager also attacked Cononico’s reputation, telling jurors that they could infer he had violent tendencies because of his prior criminal record, which includes armed robbery.
He told jurors that Lori Prinkey was not honest with anyone the summer she had an affair with Cononico, and told the panel that damaged her credibility in court. He also argued that jurors should not buy Lori Prinkey’s testimony that she did not have a pre-existing relationship with Cononico before he was released from prison in August 2005. Lori Prinkey was a unit manager at the State Correctional Institution at Somerset, where Cononico was being held.
“Some of you may have been born at night, but you weren’t born last night,” Shrager said, noting that Lori Prinkey met Cononico at a bus station in Monroeville, Allegheny County, the day he was released from prison.
Vernon acknowledged that Lori Prinkey cheated on and lied to her husband, and that Cononico was an ex-convict, but she told jurors neither of those things mattered.
“Lori Prinkey and James Cononico are not on trial,” she said. “Raymond Prinkey laid in wait outside her apartment with a loaded gun, forced his way in, held a man at gunpoint, shot and killed him.”
Vernon said that understood that jurors may find Lori Prinkey’s behavior when she left her husband distasteful.
“Whether we like it or not, people cheat on their spouses. … We may not like it, but it’s a fact of life. That does not give someone a license to kill.”
“This is not just saying she’s an adulteress, this is not just saying she’s a liar and that she took up with a convict,” Shrager argued. “She created the situation. She put this guy (Mike Prinkey) in a situation where he was a complete wreck.”
He also reminded jurors that Lori Prinkey was again living with her husband in their Normalville home. He asked them to evaluate how she could tell them she was afraid of Prinkey, but be living with him now.
Lori Prinkey testified she moved back in to salvage what was left of her family.
Although Lori Prinkey asked her husband for space, Vernon argued that he remained obsessed with his wife.
“He told her he’d give her space and he’s on her porch with a loaded gun. Is that love or domination and control?” Vernon asked jurors.
She argued that Mike Prinkey premeditated Cononico’s death and should have been convicted of first-degree murder.
After the verdict was handed down, Vernon said she respected the jury’s finding, but maintained that the conviction could have been stiffer.
“There was evidence he laid in wait and shot another human being in the head. We believe that showed an intent to kill,” she said.