Harlow Cuadra (above)
Joseph Kerekes
I just found this article, don't know why more people haven't been talking about it...
By Michael Sisak Staff Writer
Published: Monday, December 8, 2008 4:02 PM EST by CitizensVoice.com
WILKES-BARRE - Joseph Kerekes, one of the two men charged with the January 2007 killing of Bryan Kocis, was sentenced just after 1 p.m. today to a mandatory term of life in prison without parole after pleading guilty to second-degree murder and other charges.
Kerekes entered into a plea agreement with Luzerne County prosecutors late Sunday night and affirmed his plea just after noon today during a hearing before Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr.
Olszewski accepted the plea after more than an hour of questions for Kerekes, gauging his understanding of the process that led to the agreement, and the sentence that he faced.
Olszewski sentenced Kerekes to the mandatory life sentence and a combined 56 months to 112 months in state prison and 24 months probation to be served consecutive to the life sentence.
Since Kerekes will serve a life term, the additional time was a formality that could be considered if Kerekes petitions a future governor for a pardon, Olszewski said.
Kerekes, 34, and co-defendant Harlow Cuadra, 27, faced the death penalty and were scheduled to stand trial Jan. 5.
The plea agreement materialized after a pretrial hearing on evidence suppression last Thursday, with details and documents being worked out over the weekend and into this morning
Kerekes and his attorneys met with prosecutors at the state police barracks at Wyoming and gave a statement "to develop a factual basis for the plea," Assistant District Attorney Michael Melnick said.
Kerekes told prosecutors he and Cuadra viewed Kocis, a rival producer of gay pornographer, as an "impedement to the expansion of their pornography business," Melnick said.
"They decided to eliminate and kill Bryan Kocis," Melnick said.
Kerekes completed a written guilty plea colloquy and signed a plea agreement that also bears the signatures of his attorneys, John Pike and Shelley Centini, and prosecutors.
Kerekes stood with his attorneys and prosecutors as he affirmed his plea, nodding and saying "yes" as Olszewski read each of the six charges to which Kerekes had agreed to plead.
Kocis' family watched from the jury box on the left side of the courtroom as Kerekes entered his plea. District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll and First Assistant District Attorney Jeffrey Tokach looked on from a section of chairs behind an empty defense table on the right side of the room.
Beside the murder charge, Kerekes pleaded guilty to charges of criminal conspiracy to commit robbery, conspiracy to tamper with physical evidence, tampering with physical evidence, theft by unlawful taking.
Check back to citizensvoice.com for updates throughout the day.
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