Prosecutor: Home was violated

WILKES-BARRE – Home will never feel the same for a Hazleton couple beaten in a home invasion, Luzerne County Deputy District Attorney David Pedri said Tuesday during his opening statement at the trial of the alleged assailants.

Nicholas and Martha Caputo were attacked in their South Pine Street home on Nov. 15, 2008, and required hospitalization to recover from their injuries.

“Home is a feeling they’ll never feel again because of (Daniel Pinkney and Kevin Fisher),” Pedri said in his opening statement Tuesday afternoon at the beginning of a trial for Pinkney, 22, of West Hazleton, and Fisher, 27, of Hazleton.

Pedri’s opening statement came after a jury of eight men and four women, including two alternates, was chosen and Fisher made comments to jurors during selection.

Fisher is charged with two counts of aggravated assault, two counts of robbery, four counts of criminal conspiracy and one count each of simple assault, unlawful restraint, burglary and criminal attempt, while Pinkney is charged with two counts of aggravated assault, three counts of robbery, one count of burglary, four counts of criminal conspiracy, one count of simple assault and one count of criminal attempt.

Fisher told the prospective jurors, as well as Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr., that he wasn’t happy with his attorney and wanted his trial to be continued.

Olszewski denied Fisher’s request to continue the trial and said his constitutional rights were not violated, after Fisher claimed he wasn’t shown discovery and evidence material given to his attorney.

Olszewski said Fisher’s attorney, Robert Buttner, is not obligated to share the discovery material, and that he would not argue law with Fisher. Olszewski said if Fisher causes one more outburst during his trial, he will be removed from the courtroom and the trial will resume without him.

Buttner urged jurors in his opening statement to keep an open mind and not to hold Fisher’s comments against him.

Pinkney’s attorney, John Donovan, said in his opening statement that there’s no doubt that Nov. 15, 2008, was a horrifying day for the Caputos but that prosecutors will try to shock them with testimony and have witnesses testify who are not credible.

Prosecutors presented two witnesses Tuesday, a Hazleton city police officer who was one of the first on scene and saw blood all over the Caputo house and the battered couple, and a neighbor who saw a black SUV and the alleged attackers.

Prosecutors say Fisher and Anthony Cangiano, 24, planned the robbery of Nicholas and Martha Caputo, who own a successful ice business in the Hazleton area.

Fisher allegedly recruited Joseph Bardi, 38, and Pinkney to rob the couple. Their smash-and-grab plan went foul when Pinkney rushed into the house and saw Martha Caputo lying on the couch, Pedri said. Pinkney placed something over Martha Caputo’s face and struck her several times with a handgun.

Police said Nicholas Caputo tried to help his wife when Fisher struck him with brass knuckles several times.

Cangiano and Bardi waited outside in a parked vehicle during the home invasion, police said.

Pedri said Bardi and Cangiano, who pleaded guilty recently to their roles in the crime, will testify in coming days, and that Martha Caputo will take the witness stand.

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Nicholas and Martha Caputo of Hazleton lost sense of security in invasion, deputy DA says.

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