When the Superior Court judges decide whether or not to grant
convicted cop-killer Timothy Williams a new trial, the McKean
County district attorney wants them to know that two witnesses who
testified in his Post Conviction Relief Act hearings have been
found guilty of perjury.

The attorney for Michelle Nelson and Marian Kay Nersinger,
however, believes there’s no need for the Superior Court to see
their cases since he believes their convictions will be
reversed.

McKean County District Attorney John Pavlock filed a motion to
reopen the record in the Williams case to include Nelson and
Nersinger’s perjury convictions. Perjury is a third-degree
felony.

The two women, both from New York state, were found guilty of
lying during PCRA hearings to determine if Williams should receive
a new trial.

Williams was found guilty of third-degree murder, recklessly
endangering another person and carrying a firearm without a license
in 1999 in the shooting death of Kane Borough Police Officer Steven
Jerman.

During the PRCA hearings, several people, including Nelson and
Nersinger, testified that they heard Becky Lucrezi Olson admit that
she actually shot Jerman. Lucrezi Olson was a passenger in the car
driven by Williams.

In his motion to open the record, Pavlock pointed out that
although Presiding Judge Charles Alexander from Clarion County
believed Olson had made incriminating statements, “he still
believed that (Williams) was the shooter, and that the jury
correctly found (Williams) guilty of Officer Jerman’s murder.”

Pavlock also said that Alexander found the alleged statements by
Olson were hearsay and could only be used for impeachment
purposes.

“Therefore, these statements could not legally entitle
(Williams) to relief,” Pavlock wrote, also stating that although
defense attorney Sam Stretton, who represents Williams, Nersinger
and Nelson, asserted that since others heard Lucrezi Olson’s
alleged admissions, Nelson and Nersinger must have.

“The defendant’s argument was, if she said it to others, she
must have said it to Nersinger and Nelson, too,” Pavlock said.

The DA also noted that in calling many of the same witnesses for
both cases and “holding these other PCRA witnesses out as evidence
of the lack of perjury, (Stretton) chose to test the credibility of
all of the PCRA witnesses.”

“Therefore, the jury’s verdict is not only a rejection of the
PCRA testimony of (Nersinger and Nelson), but also is a rejection
of Williams’ complete theory presented in the PCRA hearing.”

Stretton, on the other hand, believes the charges against Nelson
and Nersinger were “outrageous … particularly since numerous other
witnesses heard (Lucrezi Olson) make the same statement.”

Even though his clients were convicted of perjury, Stretton said
he is “very confident that a new trial will be granted due to an
error committed during the trial and lack of sufficient
evidence.”

Stretton has filed a motion of extraordinary relief, asserting
that a juror was seen talking with a state trooper during court
proceedings. That motion is pending; the two are scheduled to be
sentenced June 21.

Stretton also argues collateral estoppel – once a court has
decided an issue necessary to its judgment, that decision may
preclude re-litigation of the issue in a suit on a different cause
of action involving a party to the first case.

“The Commonwealth cannot have it both ways and now argue that
this conviction is somehow important to this appeal,” Stretton
said. “If that was the case, then the Commonwealth should advise
the trial judge and agree to a reversal on the basis of collateral
estoppel.

“The Commonwealth is now trying to argue an ‘absurd situation’
when in fact the Commonwealth created that by arguing against the
collateral estoppel argument,” Stretton said. “There is not good
cause to open this record.”

Stretton argues that since the Commonwealth asserted that the
Williams case had no bearing on the Nersinger/Nelson cases, it
can’t work the other way.

“The Commonwealth cannot have it both ways,” he said.

Pavlock and Stretton have until June 19 to file briefs in the
matter. Alexander will then rule on the motion and the matter will
be returned to the Superior Court.