Suit seeks slaying-related items for civil case

WILKES-BARRE – An attorney involved in a lawsuit against the former Glass Bar and a man charged in a homicide outside the bar filed court papers Wednesday asking that items from the criminal case be allowed to be used in the civil case.

Attorney Jamie Anzalone filed the papers on behalf of Jill Smith, the mother of Sabrina Cordy, who was shot and killed outside the bar in February 2008.

Anzalone said in court papers that the District Attorney’s Office and defense attorneys for Andrew Woodham, charged with Cordy’s death, should hand over discovery material – including police reports, photographs, coroners report and autopsy report – to help assist in Anzalone’s case.

Anzalone said the documents are needed to show whether the former Edwardsville bar was negligently maintained and allowed the shooting to happen.

A hearing for attorneys to argue the matter was scheduled for Nov. 12 before county Judge Hugh Mundy.

Smith is suing bar owners Leo and Elaine Yerashunas, Suzanne’s Inc. and Woodham for in excess of $50,000 for the wrongful death of Cordy and survival costs for Smith.

“There is testimony that Cordy was alive for several minutes prior to her expiration,” Anzalone stated in the court papers. This will show if there was “conscious pain and suffering,” the papers stated.

The civil case is expected to go to trial in February 2010, and Anzalone said he would like to have the documents before then so he can prepare expert testimony about the photographs and reports to show that Cordy suffered.

Woodham, 29, of Plymouth, is charged with homicide and other related charges for shooting into an occupied vehicle, killing Cordy, 23, and injuring Melba Cruz, 23. Cruz has filed a separate lawsuit in the matter.

The shooting was the end result of a dispute that had occurred two months earlier.

An argument allegedly started between Woodham’s girlfriend, Wakeba Tooley, and Cruz, police said, because of an incident in which Cruz allegedly “laid her hands” on Tooley’s 15-year-old daughter.