Plea hearing delayed unexpectedly for Uniontown lawyer
A plea hearing for a Uniontown attorney accused of bringing drugs to a client at the Uniontown booking center was scheduled for Tuesday afternoon in Fayette County Court, but it was delayed for unknown reasons after a closed-door discussion in the courtroom among the judge and counsel.
On Monday, Senior Judge Gerald R. Solomon handed down an order scheduling a plea hearing for attorney Brian Salisbury. The 34-year-old Newell man is charged with delivery of a controlled substance, transmission of a controlled substance to a confined person and three counts of drug possession for allegedly taking heroin and other narcotics to Aaron Lester Yauger while Yauger was in custody on a warrant at the Uniontown police station in July.
Solomon set the plea hearing for 1:45 p.m.; however, the kidnapping trial for a client of Salisbury’s was under way by that time, and the hearing was moved to 3:30 p.m.
Jurors in the criminal case were dismissed for the day and, after they left, Salisbury’s attorney, Samuel J. Davis, along with Deputy Attorney General Katie Wymard, approached the bench of President Judge John F. Wagner Jr.
At that point, the courtroom was emptied except for those parties and Salisbury, and the door was locked behind them.
Neither Wagner nor his staff would comment on why the door was locked, and Wymard would not comment on whether a plea was negotiated during the closed-door session.
Davis said plea proceedings were continued but was unable to provide a new date.
According to Melissa Melewsky, an attorney for the Pennsylvania NewsMedia Association, if Davis and Wymard were negotiating the terms of the plea bargain in front of a judge, the door to the courtroom should not have been locked. The public has a right to court proceedings, unless a judge presents a valid reason to close the doors, she said.
As of Tuesday afternoon, no paperwork regarding a plea agreement had been filed in the Clerk of Courts office, nor had the plea hearing been rescheduled.
The plea hearing that was meant for Tuesday was scheduled despite a pending motion to dismiss the case that has yet to be decided.
At a hearing on that matter, held before Solomon on March 20, Davis argued that the commonwealth has no eyewitnesses to the alleged crime, other than Assistant District Attorney Mark Brooks, who reportedly viewed the transaction via closed circuit surveillance. He also argued that Salisbury was deprived of his constitutional rights when a video that allegedly showed the transaction was destroyed in what Uniontown Police Capt. David Rutter called a “power surge,” during his testimony at Salisbury’s preliminary hearing.