A jury trial in a 2018 fatal Jeannette fire has been removed from next week’s schedule to give defense attorneys time to review jailhouse phone calls made by the defendant in which prosecutors said he confessed to setting the blaze.
“I didn’t feel that it was fair to the defense to be able to have time to address them prior to Monday,” said Judge Meagan Bilik-DeFazio on Thursday in approving a prosecution request to push the trial back.
Prosecutors this week said they obtained 400 calls made by Brian Rendon, 38, in 2018 and 2019 from the Westmoreland County Prison to family members and friends. They plan to introduce some as evidence in the homicide and arson trial.
Rendon is accused of setting the April 9, 2018, fire that destroyed a six-unit row house on South Seventh Street. Shirley Kocherans, 87, was killed and other tenants were injured and left homeless, police said.
Rendon also is charged with torching his Jeannette home two days earlier.
Prosecutors provided defense attorneys a list of calls they intended to present at trial. Public defender Jennifer DeFlitch said the defense was able to listen to three of the calls since getting the list.
Bilik-DeFazio in November barred prosecutors from introducing evidence that Rendon confessed to police he set the fires. The judge ruled Rendon’s low intelligence prevented him from being capable of waiving his right to not speak with police.
Ciaramitaro said that ruling and others that tossed out evidence pushed prosecutors to seek the jailhouse phone calls to see if they’d provide evidence to fill holes in their case. He acknowledged that the move came late in the game with days left until the trial was set to begin.
“Those were tactical decisions by our office based on” the court rulings unfavorable to the prosecution, he said.
Bilik-DeFazio initially ruled Thursday that the calls would be excluded from trial because she said she felt the prosecution didn’t do its “due diligence to seek out this evidence.” Ciaramitaro said he intended to appeal the decision, adding that he felt the “appropriate remedy would be a continuance” and not an exclusion.
The judge later agreed to push back the trial instead of tossing out the calls to give the defense more time to review them and prepare.