Post by carolinem on Mar 10, 2009 19:53:01 GMT -5
Joe D'Ambrosio released on bond; Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason seeks to extend retrial period
Posted by Peter Krouse and Stan Donaldson/Plain Dealer Reporter March 05, 2009 01:38AM
Death row inmate, Joe D'Ambrosio released from jail
Joe D'Ambrosio walked out of Cuyahoga County Jail on Wednesday, a free man after 20 years in prison.
But the former death-row inmate faces yet another court challenge.
Later in the day, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason asked a federal judge to extend the six-month period the state has to retry D'Ambrosio for the 1988 aggravated murder of Tony Klann, 19, according to court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland.
D'Ambrosio, 48, was convicted in 1989 for the murder in Cleveland Heights and sentenced to death. But in 2006, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors withheld 10 key pieces of evidence from D'Ambrosio and his lawyers that might have exonerated him in the original case.
Last September, a federal judge set a 180-day period for D'Ambrosio to be retried.
The state said it was prepared to go forth with the retrial on Monday. But the trial date was postponed after D'Ambrosio's attorneys filed a motion requesting additional forensic testing of evidence. The six-month deadline is Tuesday.
Wednesday's filing also states that at one point D'Ambrosio's lawyers discussed a plea agreement with Mason's office, after Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg said she wanted both sides to try to make a deal.
In December, the prosecutor's office said that it does not "have any authority or intention to offer a plea bargain but that a good starting point would be that D'Ambrosio take full responsibility for his conduct," according to the court document.
By early February, after discussions between both sides, Mason declined a plea offer. No details about the offer were in the court documents.
D'Ambrosio is scheduled to be retried on May 4.
Synenberg set his bail at $50,000 last week and allowed him to stay with a woman in Parma who befriended him while he was in prison.
D'Ambrosio, wearing baggy brown pants, a sweatshirt and a blue-and-gold athletic jacket as he left the jail, said only, "No comment," as he walked out of the Lakeside Avenue doors of the Justice Center.
He will be subject to electronic monitoring while free on bond until the trial.
The Rev. Neil Kookoothe, a Catholic priest who has corresponded with D'Ambrosio for years, was with D'Ambrosio.
Posted by Peter Krouse and Stan Donaldson/Plain Dealer Reporter March 05, 2009 01:38AM
Death row inmate, Joe D'Ambrosio released from jail
Joe D'Ambrosio walked out of Cuyahoga County Jail on Wednesday, a free man after 20 years in prison.
But the former death-row inmate faces yet another court challenge.
Later in the day, Ohio Attorney General Richard Cordray and Cuyahoga County Prosecutor Bill Mason asked a federal judge to extend the six-month period the state has to retry D'Ambrosio for the 1988 aggravated murder of Tony Klann, 19, according to court papers filed in U.S. District Court in Cleveland.
D'Ambrosio, 48, was convicted in 1989 for the murder in Cleveland Heights and sentenced to death. But in 2006, a federal judge ruled that prosecutors withheld 10 key pieces of evidence from D'Ambrosio and his lawyers that might have exonerated him in the original case.
Last September, a federal judge set a 180-day period for D'Ambrosio to be retried.
The state said it was prepared to go forth with the retrial on Monday. But the trial date was postponed after D'Ambrosio's attorneys filed a motion requesting additional forensic testing of evidence. The six-month deadline is Tuesday.
Wednesday's filing also states that at one point D'Ambrosio's lawyers discussed a plea agreement with Mason's office, after Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Judge Joan Synenberg said she wanted both sides to try to make a deal.
In December, the prosecutor's office said that it does not "have any authority or intention to offer a plea bargain but that a good starting point would be that D'Ambrosio take full responsibility for his conduct," according to the court document.
By early February, after discussions between both sides, Mason declined a plea offer. No details about the offer were in the court documents.
D'Ambrosio is scheduled to be retried on May 4.
Synenberg set his bail at $50,000 last week and allowed him to stay with a woman in Parma who befriended him while he was in prison.
D'Ambrosio, wearing baggy brown pants, a sweatshirt and a blue-and-gold athletic jacket as he left the jail, said only, "No comment," as he walked out of the Lakeside Avenue doors of the Justice Center.
He will be subject to electronic monitoring while free on bond until the trial.
The Rev. Neil Kookoothe, a Catholic priest who has corresponded with D'Ambrosio for years, was with D'Ambrosio.