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WILKES-BARRE — Two men accused of carjacking the wife of a former police chief in Wilkes-Barre had their preliminary hearings delayed Tuesday.
City police detectives allege Corey Thomas Patrick, 21, and Dametrius Cefus Laws, 23, conspired to steal a 2015 Chevrolet Equinox that was occupied by Jean Dessoye on April 3, 2016.
She is the wife of Gerard Dessoye, who retired as Wilkes-Barre chief in September 2014.
Patrick and Laws allegedly pulled Jean Dessoye from the SUV while she waited for her son on Diebel Street, Wilkes-Barre, court records say.
She suffered leg injuries during the carjacking.
Detectives say they recovered a knife and eyeglasses on Diebel Street.
The eyeglass frame was traced to a retail store in Wilkes-Barre Township where detectives obtained sales records that led to Patrick and his cellphone number.
With FBI assistance, detectives learned the suspects’ cellphones were in the area of the carjacking and later in the area where the vehicle was recovered, records show. Laws’ phone was reportedly used to call a taxi, which picked up the two men and a woman near Turkey Hill on North Pennsylvania Avenue on April 3, 2016.
The taxi driver saw the woman, who wasn’t identified, was carrying a purse, which detectives alleged belonged to Jean Dessoye.
Patrick and Law were charged in August with multiple robbery-related offenses.
A preliminary hearing for Patrick was continued due to a conflict with the Luzerne County Public Defender’s Office representing him. A defense lawyer from the county’s pool of conflict lawyers will be appointed at a later date.
Laws, who is represented by Public Defender Christine Marie Trout, appeared in Central Court for his preliminary hearing. After a nearly one-hour private meeting, Trout was a granted a continuance, indicating Laws would like to have his hearing at the same time as Patrick’s proceeding.
A preliminary hearing for Patrick and Laws will be scheduled once a conflict attorney is appointed to represent Patrick.
Patrick, formerly of Larksville, is an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Chester, where he is serving 14 to 28 months on charges he initiated a police pursuit after a dispute with a woman in Blair County in June 2017.
Laws, formerly of Plymouth, is an inmate at the State Correctional Institution at Mahanoy, where he is serving a five-to-10 year term for a home invasion and assault in Plymouth in March 2016, records say.
