Lawyer questions witness’ statements

Kristen Hays

Tuesday, Jan. 2, 2001 | 1:38 a.m.

WASHINGTON, Pa. - A lawyer for one of two men accused of killing an Ohio businessman said Tuesday that the prosecution's key witness might know so much about the case because he could have pulled the trigger himself.

"He very well could have been the one," Washington County Public Defender Glenn Alterio said of John S. Shaker, 31, of Las Vegas. Alterio represents Alexander Martos, 33, of Bentleyville.

Washington County District Attorney John Pettit said prosecutors believe Martos fatally shot Ira Swearingen, a 49-year-old medical consultant from Stout, Ohio, in a remote wooded area in neighboring Greene County while Gregory Modery, 30, of McMurray, stood by in December 1999.

Sixty-four potential jurors appeared in Washington County Court on Tuesday morning for jury selection in Martos' trial. But Washington County Judge Katherine Emery postponed the case until March 2 to give Alterio time to gather information from the prosecution.

Emery has yet to rule on whether an out-of-county jury should hear Modery's case, which is scheduled for February. Alterio said he planned to ask for the same thing in Martos' case.

Alterio also indicated he might argue that Shaker is more than just a witness who heard about Swearingen's death from Martos and Modery.

Swearingen flew to Pittsburgh International Airport on Dec. 12, 1999, rented a car, and intended to drive to Uniontown to assist in a surgery the next morning, according to prosecutors. He never showed up, and his burned-out car was found Dec. 17 in Greene County.

On New Year's Eve that year, Shaker called authorities from Las Vegas to report that he saw Martos and Modery beat, rob and abduct Swearingen near an adult bookstore off of Interstate 70 in Washington County. He testified in January last year that Modery told him later that he stood by while Martos shot and killed the consultant.

Shaker testified that he was unemployed when he met Martos in Las Vegas in November 1999. Shaker said he followed Martos to Washington County in early December when Martos said construction work was available in southwestern Pennsylvania.

He said that hours after they got off a bus in Pittsburgh, he acted as a lookout while Martos and Modery stole four handguns from Martos' former boss.

Authorities say that in November they found one of those guns in the Monongahela River where Shaker said he watched Modery toss it out a pickup truck window. Prosecutors believe it was used to shoot Swearingen.

Shaker has admitted to hitting Swearingen a few times as Martos and Modery beat him. He also admitted to using Swearingen's credit cards to buy goods, including boots he wore while testifying at their preliminary hearings in January last year.

Authorities charged Modery and Martos with homicide about six months later largely based on Shaker's testimony while Swearingen's body remained missing. All three and another witness, Robert Petrick of Bentleyville, were charged in January 1999 with conspiracy to commit murder in Swearingen's disappearance.

Shaker has been jailed since January 1999.

In November, a hunter found a skeleton later determined to be that of Swearingen just 10 miles from where authorities recovered the burned car.

"That provides some credence or credibility of what Mr. Shaker said," Alterio said Tuesday. "But if he is the actor, he would have known it."