Fayette billed $14K for judges’ defense

Nov. 28--The Greensburg law firm representing two senior judges in a civil lawsuit has billed Fayette County$14,619 for its first month of services.

Commissioners in October hired Thomas Pellis of Meyer, Darragh, Buckler, Bebeneck & Eck to represent senior judges Gerald Solomon and Ralph Warman in the federal lawsuit connected to their former jobs as county prosecutors.

The two are named as defendants in a lawsuit filed by David Joseph Munchinski, 61, formerly of Latrobe, who claims he was wrongly convicted for two murders and spent 24 years in prison as the result of malicious prosecution.

Munchinski is seeking unspecified damages from the judges, former prosecutor John A. Kopas III and the estate of investigating Trooper George Fayock.

Munchinski was prosecuted in 1986 in a double homicide in Bear Rocks.

Prosecutors withheld evidence favorable to Munchinski and used testimony from an informant who claimed to have witnessed the killings, even though he was not even in the state, a federal judge noted in an opinion during Munchinski's appeal on the criminal convictions.

County commissioners hired the Greensburg firm to represent the judges because their insurance carrier will not pay the defense fees. The insurer, Pennsylvania Counties Risk Pool, did not insure the county at the time the case originated.

Amy Revak, chief clerk for the county, said the bill will be paid with money in the county's fund balance. The amount of money in that fund was not immediately available on Wednesday.

Pellis' firm charged hourly fees of $145 and $175 for its work on the case in October, according to its billing statement. The bill included phone, postage and photocopying expenses of $272.

Ken Burkley, county solicitor, said efforts to have the state help to pay the county's legal fees have so far proven unsuccessful.

"They've sent back another letter saying they won't do that, that the law doesn't compel them to do that," Burkley said.

The county has argued that the state should share in the judges' legal costs because as prosecutors, they were acting on behalf of the commonwealth.

In the letter to Burkley, Chief Deputy Attorney General Gregory R. Neuhauser said the state is not obligated to represent Warman and Solomon because neither was employed by a state agency during Munchinski's prosecution.

Kopas is represented by attorneys through his private insurance carrier. One of those attorneys, Bethann Lloyd of Pittsburgh, has asked the county to pay Kopas' legal fees and any judgment.

Munchinski was exonerated in June when Fayette Judge Nancy Vernon dismissed the homicide charges following a protracted appeals battle that overturned Munchinski's conviction in the Dec. 2, 1977 slayings of James "Petey" Alford, 24, and Raymond Gierke, 28, at Gierke's Bear Rocks home.

Munchinski, who was sentenced to two terms of life in prison, was released on bail in 2011 when a federal judge overturned the guilty verdict. Prosecutors declined to retry Munchinski.

The suit claims that Solomon, Warman and Fayock withheld evidence in the 1980s indicating that another suspect confessed to the killings and investigative reports that contradicted a prosecution witness's statement.

Had that evidence been shared with the defense, Munchinski "would have been found not guilty and acquitted of all charges," the suit states.

In September 2011, the 3rd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals said the guilty verdict against Munchinski was "highly suspect" and tainted by evidence tampering, prosecutorial misconduct and an unreliable "eyewitness."

Liz Zemba is a reporter for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-601-2166 or lzemba@tribweb.com.

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