Alberto
Click here to subscribe today or Login.
WILKES-BARRE — Despite an attorney’s pledge to file a motion in an attempt to keep an unsolicited statement by his client from being told to a Luzerne County jury, President Judge Michael T. Vough said the homicide trial of James Robert Alberto and Charles Reilly Bierly will not be delayed.
A jury trial for Alberto, 34, and Bierly, 24, in the slaying of Judith C. Comisky, 52, inside her Willow Street, Wilkes-Barre, residence on Sept. 16, 2021, will begin Jan. 30, Vough said Tuesday.
Alberto and Bierly appeared before Vough for a pre-trial hearing to settle any outstanding legal issues before selection of the jury begins next month.
While no motions or petitions have been filed by Alberto’s attorney, Frank T. McCabe II, Bierly’s attorney John Pike said he expects to file one later this week.
Vough reminded Pike that nothing was before him at Tuesday’s hearing.
Pike said he recently learned Bierly made an unsolicited statement about the homicide he will attempt to have suppressed. The statement was not made known during the hearing.
Vough said any forthcoming motions and petitions will not delay the trial date.
Assistant District Attorney Drew P. McLaughlin who, along with Assistant District Attorney Julian F. Truskowski are prosecuting, said they are prepared for trial.
In response to Pike’s efforts to suppress Bierly’s unsolicited statement, McLaughlin said Bierly was read his Miranda rights prior to admitting he killed Comisky.
McLaughlin said he expects to take a week to present witnesses and evidence to the jury while Vough blocked out two weeks for the trial.
Wilkes-Barre police detectives in court records say Alberto persuaded Bierly to kill Comisky as he believed Comisky was an informant. Prosecutors say Comisky was not providing information about Alberto’s activities to police.
Comisky was found dead inside her home. An autopsy revealed she died from multiple stab wounds.
After her body was found, Bierly was arrested after he allegedly purchased fentanyl outside a motel in Wilkes-Barre Township on Sept. 17, 2021.
Bierly told detectives, court records say, Alberto threatened to rape and kill his girlfriend and then kill him unless Comisky was killed.
Alberto claims he was not in the area of Comisky’s residence when she was killed.
Alberto and Bierly are each facing trial on an open count of criminal homicide, burglary, illegal possession of a firearm, criminal solicitation to commit homicide and three counts of criminal conspiracy. Bierly is further charged with three counts of tampering with evidence.
Prosecutors allege Bierly discarded evidence in the Susquehanna River near the Nanticoke-West Nanticoke Bridge where the items were recovered by investigators and a dive team.