Lawyer calls evidence hearsay
In the run-up to the trial of a Pittsburgh man accused of selling drugs in downtown Butler, his defense lawyer questioned evidence Tuesday that led to the defendant's arrest, calling it hearsay.
“This is a problem of identity,” Armand R. Cingolani said, with his client, Shakor D. Wilder, 23, seated next to him wearing orange overalls provided by the county jail. “Now I'm being blocked at discovery.”
Cingolani requested Judge Timothy McCune to remove certain elements of the case from moving to trial.
Much of what Cingolani wants removed from the case against Wilder are the police reports documenting the events leading up to Wilder's arrest. He also argued Tuesday that the contents of the police affidavit used to justify the court-ordered search warrant are based on hearsay.
But McCune wasn't swayed by Cingolani's request.
“I wanna hear argument. I want to hear evidence,” McCune said. “It appears to me your arguments are trial arguments.”
Wilder was arrested in August during a raid by Butler County Drug Task Force officers. During the raid, police found suspected crack cocaine, several hundred dollars, more than a half dozen cell phones, and other suspected drug contraband, authorities said. Along with Wilder, they arrested Corey A. Dooley, 37, and his girlfriend, Teri L. Mulneix, 39.
If McCune grants the request, the prosecution will be unable to present testimony from the officers who were part of the investigation that led to the raid. It is unclear when McCune will make a decision.
The raid, said county Detective Tim Fennell, who heads the task force, followed a three-week investigation into suspected drug dealing at the apartment on the 300 block of South Main Street.
In an earlier filing requesting Tuesday's hearing, Cingolani described the raid.
“Once the police burst into the apartment, the accused is grabbed, knocked over and arrested in the shower (where) he is trapped and naked,” he said. “Why grab and accuse a naked man in the shower?”
Task force officers and Butler police executed the warrant around 9:15 p.m. Aug. 27 and found the defendants there along with four other people.
Seized from the home, Fennell said, was a “small amount” of crack, a digital scale, drug-packaging materials and $447 in currency.
Dooley and Mulneix told investigators, according to court documents, that Wilder “would bring narcotics to the residence to be sold.”
The tenants, documents noted, “would occasionally meet people for Wilder to deliver the narcotics that Wilder would provide them.”
Wilder at the time of his arrest was already free on $35,000 bail in connection with an unrelated felony drug case.
Butler police in that case arrested him and another man following a March 24 traffic stop during which officers say they seized six bags of crack.
