Decision on Curley is pending: Judge’s decision on insurance payments in third-degree murder case expected to take several months. [The Times Leader, Wilkes-Barre, Pa.]

Aug. 11--WILKES-BARRE -- It will be several months before a Luzerne County judge decides if an insurance carrier inappropriately paid Robert Curley's death benefits to his wife, Joann Curley, who admitted to spiking his iced tea with thallium in 1991.

Judge William Amesbury on Tuesday told lawyers for Curley's mother, Mary Curley, and People Life Insurance Company to submit legal briefs within 60 days. He will then make a decision whether Curley's estate should be paid $100,000.

Testimony over two days ended Tuesday morning in a lawsuit Mary Curley filed in 1998 against People Life, which was acquired by Monumental Life Insurance Co. in 1999.

She claimed People Life was negligent when it paid her son's death benefits to Joann Curley, 46, in June 1992.

Joann Curley, admitted she spiked Robert's iced tea with thallium for three months before he died on Sept. 27, 1991. She pleaded guilty in July 1998 to third-degree murder and was sentenced to 10 to 20 years in state prison, according to court records.

Attorney Joseph O'Brien, representing People Life, said Robert's death benefits were paid in "good faith" to Joann Curley after then-District Attorney Peter Paul Olszewski announced on June 2, 1992, that Joann Curley was not a suspect in her husband's death.

Robert Curley purchased life insurance from People Life in September 1984, naming his mother as sole beneficiary.

After he married Joann in 1990, Robert changed the beneficiary to her and named her daughter, Angela Chopack, as secondary beneficiary.

Mary Curley's lawyers, Michael Mey and Anthony Lupas, said People Life should have paid Robert's death benefits to his estate, claiming Joann Curley was prevented under the state's slayer law from profiting from her crime.

Joann Curley confessed to investigators, according to The Times Leader archives, that she laced her husband's iced tea with thallium for his insurance benefits.

The non-jury trial before Amesbury was expected to take four days. It ended Tuesday morning with only one witness testifying.

Olszewski and Mark Ciavarella, former judges, were on the witness list as potential witnesses to testify, O'Brien said afterward.

Neither man was called to testify.

Edward Lewis, a Times Leader staff writer, may be reached at 829-7196.

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