SMETHPORT – In nearly a full day of testimony Wednesday,
attorneys presented evidence on whether or not the jury was tainted
in the perjury trial of two New York women convicted of lying about
the alleged confession of another person in the case of a cop
killer.

Among those to testify were the state trooper accused of talking
to jurors during deliberations in the case of Marian Nersinger and
Michelle Nelson; reporters for two newspapers who covered the
trial; three witnesses who had testified for Nersinger and Nelson;
and four jurors who heard the case.

Nelson and Nersinger were both charged with lying during a Post
Conviction Relief Act hearing for convicted cop-killer Timothy
Williams. Both women had said Becky Lucrezi Olson, who was in the
car with Williams when he was pulled over by Kane Police Officer
Steven Jerman, had said she shot Jerman and that Williams was
convicted of the crime instead.

The issue at Wednesday’s hearing, argued defense attorney Sam
Stretton, was that after the jury had gone into deliberations, they
re-entered the courtroom with a question. While Stretton and
District Attorney John Pavlock were at the bench talking to Judge
John Yoder in a sidebar discussion, witnesses saw Kane-based state
Trooper Gary Stuckey gesturing and possibly communicating with a
juror.

Kimberley Hoak, a reporter for The Potter Leader-Enterprise,
testified that she saw Stuckey communicating with juror #12, while
Bradford Era City Editor Sandra Rhodes testified that she saw juror
#2 gesturing towards Stuckey, but said she did not know if Stuckey
responded.

Holly Duell of Coudersport, who testified on behalf of Nersinger
and Nelson at trial, said she saw juror #2 leaning out of the jury
box talking to Stuckey, who she saw communicating in return.

“Why didn’t you tell me this when the trial was in progress?”
Stretton asked, after establishing he had been told after the
verdict was final and the court session was adjourned.

“I thought it would be rude,” Duell responded.

Asking Duell to recount what she saw Stuckey do that day in
court, Pavlock said, “Did you ever see his lips actually move?”

“No,” she responded. She had been sitting behind him.

Two additional witnesses, Amy Bittner – Nersinger’s sister, and
Mark Ahearn, both of whom had testified for Nelson and Nersinger at
trial, testified at the hearing that they saw someone in the jury
box talk to Stuckey. Neither was sure which juror they saw, but
both said it was someone in the front row.

After a break for lunch, the hearing reconvened in the
afternoon. Pavlock presented testimony from Stuckey and from four
of the jurors in the case. He also played a tape recording of the
trial from Court Reporter Diane Cheatle’s notes.

Stretton objected to its admissibility, in part due to it being
difficult to make out in the courtroom.

Pavlock explained that on the tape, there were no voices of
jurors heard, nor was Stuckey heard talking to the jury.

“Would it have been on the tape? That’s an issue for Your Honor
to decide,” Pavlock said to Yoder.

When Stuckey took the stand, Pavlock asked him about the time
frame that was highlighted on the tape.

Stretton objected, saying he could not determine a time frame
from the tape.

“If he was on the stand, then I’d have a witness who doesn’t
know anything,” Pavlock snapped, turning again to Stuckey.

Stretton said that on the tape, one person could be heard
coughing, but he believed that person had already left for the
evening when the exchange in question took place.

“I’ll accept the tape,” Yoder said, adding he would decide what
was relevant when he listened to it while making his determination
in the case.

Stuckey testified that during the time in question, the jury was
“chatting” and said “they wanted to see (Pavlock’s) closing
statement. I said, ‘I don’t know.'”

That was the only communication he had with the jurors, he
said.

Stretton asked Stuckey why, if a juror had said something to
him, he had not told someone immediately. Stuckey said he told
Pavlock right away.

Stretton asked why Stuckey didn’t tell him, to which Pavlock
said Stretton and his investigators still have not contacted
Stuckey to ask him about what happened at the trial.

“He filed his motion without investigating it,” Pavlock said of
Stretton, adding that he hadn’t interviewed Stuckey or Rhodes, whom
he refers to in the motion as a “reporter from a Bradford newspaper
whose name present counsel cannot recall,” before filing his
motion.

“There’s some witnesses whose names I can’t remember?” Pavlock
said incredulously, referring to Stretton’s motion.

Four jurors took the stand. Only one, juror #6, Tricia Lundgren,
remember Stuckey speaking, but she was seated closest to where he
was seated. When asked what he said, she recounted that Stuckey
said, “I don’t know.”

She added that she looked around to see who he was talking to,
but didn’t know who it was he may have spoken to. The other three
jurors said the communications going on were between members of the
jury, and were not directed at anyone else.

Stretton had also argued that the jury in Nelson’s and
Nersinger’s trial was tainted because of a statement made at trial
by former District Attorney Michele Alfieri. Under
cross-examination, Alfieri said that she had given Lucrezi Olson
immunity in the Williams case because Lucrezi Olson had passed a
polygraph test.

He presented a witness, his private investigator Tony Marceca,
who said that when Alfieri left the courtroom after testifying, she
was celebrating getting the polygraph into her testimony.

Pavlock presented testimony from courthouse security guard
Edward Janiszewski, who was working at the metal detector in the
hallway that day. He said he did not recall any such celebrations
by Alfieri.

Referring to Alfieri’s mention of the polygraph test, Stretton
said, “This was intentional for the sole purpose of tainting the
jury. The truthfulness of Becky Lucrezi was a critical issue.”

Yoder took both issues under advisement. He told both attorneys
to file briefs in the case, which would be expected 15 days after
Wednesday’s proceedings were transcribed.

Nelson and Nersinger were not sentenced Wednesday, but the
sentencing was continued until after the motions are decided.