By Tom Grace
Cooperstown News Bureau
May 09, 2008 04:00 am Peter Wlasiuk's murder retrial in Chenango County Court has been postponed until September, but his attorney said Thursday it is unlikely to be held even then. ``They said we were going to have a trial on March 3, then May 12 and now, it's supposed to be in September, but I don't think it's going to happen,'' said Randel Scharf, of Cooperstown. Wlasiuk, 39, is accused of murdering his wife, Patricia, in 2002, then staging an accident by driving her body into Guilford Lake. He was convicted of second-degree murder in 2003 and sentenced to 25 years in prison, but the conviction was overturned by the Appellate Division of the state Supreme Court in 2006. Appellate judges said they found numerous errors at trial, and Thursday, Scharf said he's found more, including the discovery that the prosecution withheld information during the first trial. Patricia Wlasiuk had more than 100 items in her pockets when her body was pulled to the shore of Guilford Lake, he said. ``But we didn't know that until this year because the evidence was locked up in an evidence locker,'' Scharf said. The presence of all these items is significant, he said, because the prosecution theorizes that Wlasiuk murdered his wife at home, then transported her body. ``But wouldn't you think something might have fallen out of her pockets?'' he said. A defense team that includes Dr. Michael Sikirica, a forensic expert who has volunteered his services, has learned that Patricia Wlasiuk, a former nurse at The Hospital in Sidney, had cyclobenzaprine in her blood at the time of her death, Scharf said Monday during a pretrial hearing in Chenango County Court. Scharf told presiding Judge Martin Smith of Binghamton that cyclobenzaprine can be fatal in high doses, and he asked for an adjournment to have further drug testing done. Smith denied the request, but apparently changed his mind over the next three days. Chenango County District Attorney Joseph McBride was not in his office nor expected back Thursday afternoon, according to his staff. McBride, who prosecuted Wlasiuk in 2003, has declined to speak about the pending case. In court, he has said his office has complied whenever possible with defense requests for information. He also questioned whether cyclobenzaprine, or just a residual component of it, was in Patricia Wlasiuk's blood, and asked how the blood test would have any relevance to the trial. Scharf said he plans to ask that the trial be moved from Norwich to Binghamton, where Smith is a Broome County judge. Albany-area attorney Terrence Kindlon is helping with the change of venue request, he said. Scharf also said there are two witnesses who heard Patricia Wlasiuk call for help shortly after her truck plowed into Guilford Lake _ potentially evidence that she was a drowning, not a murder, victim.
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