Selenski's murder trial could seem familiar
Hugo Selenski's trial last week for a Monroe County home invasion offered a preview of the case Luzerne County prosecutors plan to present when he is tried for the May 2002 killings of Michael Kerkowski and Tammy Fassett, prosecutors and Selenski's attorneys said.
Monroe County Assistant District Attorney Colleen Mancuso, used evidence recovered in the Luzerne County investigation - including duct tape, plastic ties and handcuffs - as she attempted to link Selenski to the January 2003 home invasion and a broader pattern of criminal behavior.
The state Superior Court, which issued the April decision allowing prosecutors in Monroe and Luzerne counties to use evidence from the other crimes, described the similarities as "striking."
Recovery Mission: More than six months after corruption cast a dark cloud over the Luzerne County court system, President Judge Chester B. Muroski and his colleagues are still working to regain public trust and ensure the court remains transparent for years to come.
In both cases, prosecutors said, Selenski and co-defendant Paul Weakley targeted small business owners who lived in rural homes. They bound them with duct tape over their eyes and mouth and plastic flex ties around the wrists and attempted to steal thousands of dollars in cash.
In Monroe County, prosecutors said, Selenski and Weakley broke into a secluded Chestnuthill Township home, bound the owner, Samuel Goosay, with duct tape, plastic ties and handcuffs, and held him at gunpoint while demanding $20,000.
In Luzerne County, Selenski and Weakley allegedly accosted Kerkowski and Fassett at Kerkowski's home in May 2002 - two weeks before Kerkowski, a pharmacist, was scheduled to be sentenced in federal court for charges involving delivery of a controlled substance.
Selenski and Weakley bound Kerkowski and Fassett using the same methods later used on Goosay, killed them and buried their bodies in the backyard of the Kingston Township home where Selenski lived with his girlfriend at the time, Christina Strom, prosecutors said.
Investigators discovered the bodies of Kerkowski, Fassett and at least three other people in Selenski's yard in June 2003.
At the same time, investigators recovered duct tape, plastic ties and handcuffs from the Selenski home, as well as other evidence prosecutors said showed a link to the Monroe County crime:
The ski masks, ski gloves and sweatshirts Goosay said Selenski and Weakley wore during the break in.
A black 9-millimeter handgun Goosay said Selenski carried into the home and used to smack him in the back of the head before fleeing.
A pair of size 10-and-a-half New Balance sneakers a state police forensics expert said matched footprints left in the snow around Goosay's property.
A Monroe County jury convicted Selenski last Friday on all 14 charges related to the home invasion, including robbery, kidnapping and criminal conspiracy.
He faces a maximum of 153 years in state prison and up to $250,000 in fines.
"The similarities are the duct tape, the flex ties and the way they're bound," Mancuso said. "I think that is somewhat important, because it shows his identity, but I think more important is that all the items Mr. Goosay described here are found in (Selenski's) home - and the footprint and the shoes, that really ties Mr. Selenski into this case."
The Luzerne County case, which has already been delayed more than two years by appeals, is on hold indefinitely while the state Supreme Court considers Selenski's appeal of the decision allowing prosecutors to present the Monroe County evidence.
Selenski was acquitted in 2006 on two murder charges in the killing Frank James and Adeiye Keiler, but remained imprisoned after a conviction for abusing their corpses.
Selenski's attorney in Monroe County, Chief Public Defender Wieslaw Niemoczynski, said the Superior Court decision fueled a terse and unfair prosecution on the home invasion charges.
"It looks like Luzerne County saw a window, or a doorway," Niemoczynski said. "What they were trying to do, in my view, was to cram this through here so that it gives them some sort of tool to use in Luzerne County."
Luzerne County prosecutors, who have been barred by a court order from speaking publicly about the Selenski case, are also expected to call several of the same witnesses who factored into the Monroe County case, including:
Goosay, the Monroe County home invasion victim, who recalled his harrowing ordeal with vivid detail and testified the items recovered from Selenski's home were "similar" or "identical" to those used in his case.
Strom, Selenski's former girlfriend, who testified she saw a black gun "similar" to the one used in the home invasion in a closet at the home where she lived with Selenski. Under a plea agreement to federal money laundering charges, Strom must testify in all Selenski-related prosecutions. She said she also found a pair of New Balance sneakers in the closet, handcuffs in a dresser drawer and a plastic tie under the floor mat in her Honda Accord - the vehicle prosecutors said Selenski drove to Goosay's house.
Weakley, the co-defendant who Mancuso described as Selenski's "best friend." Weakley did not testify at the Monroe County trial, but was referenced several times during the Monroe County trial during testimony about blood evidence and DNA. Under a plea agreement last year, Weakley must also cooperate with all Selenski prosecutions.
Mancuso said the length of the trial and Weakley's guilty plea, to a federal corruption charge encompassing the killings and the home invasion, factored into her decision not to have him testify.
"There's no point kind of dirtying up your own case and I felt the evidence was more than sufficient to show Selenski," Mancuso said. "I wanted to narrow it or we would have been here for a week and a half if I had to bring in everything about Weakley and all of that, it just would have been too much."
During the Monroe County trial, state Troopers Gerard Sachney and Shawn Noonan revealed laboratory testing on key pieces of physical evidence - including the ski masks, gloves and towels recovered in the investigation - failed to indicate any blood or DNA link to Selenski.
The only blood found on any of the evidence belonged to Weakley, they said.
Mancuso said Selenski eliminated blood and DNA evidence in both cases - the butt of a cigarette he smoked at Goosay's home and beer bottles from a meeting with Kerkowski's father after Kerkowski's disappearance. Luzerne County prosecutors will face the same physical disconnect.
"There was no DNA evidence because Hugo Selenski takes the DNA evidence with him and does that in most of his cases," Mancuso said.
"He was wearing latex gloves underneath the ski gloves, he flushes the cigarette butts, he takes the cigarette pack with him," Mancuso continued. "He's not going to leave any evidence with him. Of course if there had been DNA evidence on him, it would have been cut and dry, but it didn't eliminate our ability to convict him."
