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Urwin’s petition denied by DiSalle

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Robert W. Urwin failed to show former judge Paul Pozonsky was high on cocaine during Urwin’s trial in the 1977 murder of 16-year-old Mary Gency, another Washington County judge ruled.

That finding was part of Judge John F. DiSalle’s ruling, filed Wednesday, denying a petition by Urwin, 60, of Dunlevy, under the Post Conviction Relief Act.

Pozonsky found Urwin guilty of third-degree homicide following a nonjury trial in 2011 and sentenced him to 10 to 20 years in state prison.

Pozonsky later pleaded guilty to charges stemming from his taking of evidence and use of cocaine evidence from cases over which he presided.

Several of the issues raised by Urwin’s appellate attorney, Brian Zeiger, hinged on whether Pozonsky was under the influence of drugs while he heard Urwin’s case.

DiSalle found testimony during a Feb. 22 hearing – including that of Joe Francis, Urwin’s trial attorney, and Leslie Ridge, a former law clerk for Pozonsky who is now a county prosecutor – “simply didn’t support (Urwin’s) assertions. Witnesses who had close contact with Pozonsky during that time period testified that Pozonsky showed no signs of intoxication at the time, and they did not even suspect he was using illicit substances at any time, let alone while on the bench.”

Gency’s nude body was found in a field in Fallowfield Township Feb. 19, 1977. Her clothes were scattered in the field and on the road.

An autopsy determined she was five or six weeks pregnant.

David Davoli was arrested that year. Those charges were later dismissed at a preliminary hearing. The case went cold until state police matched DNA evidence found on Gency’s clothing to Davoli’s and Urwin’s paternal bloodlines in 2009, according to DiSalle’s opinion.

Davoli, who was arrested again with Urwin in 2010, cooperated with the prosecution during Urwin’s trial in exchange for a 2-to 4-year prison sentence.

Contacted Thursday, Wanda Urwin, 80, of Fallowfield Township, maintained her son is innocent.

“My son – honest to God – I swear he did not do this,” said Wanda, who visits her son at SCI-Somerset every two weeks. “He’s depressed from being there for something he didn’t do.”

Davoli testified, six days before Gency was found, the men drove in Davoli’s car to Gun Club Road, where Urwin then Davoli had sex with her. Afterward, Urwin pulled her from the car, hit her in the back of the head at least three times with a fender skirt tool and returned to the car alone, Davoli said.

DiSalle dismissed an assertion by Urwin that his trial lawyer was ineffective for failing to argue investigators unnecessarily delayed making an arrest, concluding investigators “took reasonable steps, at regular intervals throughout the length of the investigation, using the tools available at the time, to determine the identity of (Gency’s) killer.”

He also dismissed an assertion the defense should have called an expert witness to testify at trial the DNA from Gency’s clothing linked to Urwin could have come from her unborn child, ruling that claim relied on “nothing other than speculation and conjecture.”

Several of the other assertions in Urwin’s petition were aimed at calling into question the DNA evidence that implicated his in the trial.

Zeiger sought DNA testing of living male relatives of two men who were never charged but were at one point allegedly implicated as having been involved in raping and killing Gency. Both are now deceased. Zeiger also requested additional testing of hair and blood reportedly found at the scene.

DiSalle, however, ruled Urwin’s peitition attorney had fallen short of the bar of showing the testing would establish Urwin’s “actual innocence,” as required by law. “If all of defendant’s assertions are taken as true, the ultimate result would be nothing more than adding additional persons as possible suspects in the crime,” he wrote.

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