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WILKES-BARRE — Dana Ganjeh won’t be going to trial next month after a county judge granted his motion for continuance on Tuesday. What isn’t clear is when exactly that trial will happen.
The decision comes on the same day that the defense filed several motions in an attempt to suppress evidence in Ganjeh’s upcoming homicide trial.
Ganjeh, 40, of Kingston, is facing an open count of criminal homicide after police say he fatally beat his girlfriend, Linda Frick, 56, sometime between Aug. 3 and 4 last year. Frick’s body was found under a blanket in the passenger seat of a Toyota Rav4 parked behind a home at 71 Price St., Kingston, where Ganjeh lived before his arrest.
The defendant appeared in court Tuesday for a scheduling hearing, after the defense team filed a motion asking for more time to prepare for the trial that was previously scheduled for Sept. 9, explaining they needed more time to procure expert witnesses for their defense.
Luzerne County Judge David W. Lupas granted their motion, scheduling a pre-trial conference for Oct. 16. Lupas didn’t schedule a new date for the trial itself, though, deciding it would be best to hold off until after the results of the October hearing, especially in light of a series of defense motions filed in court Tuesday morning.
Filed by defense attorney Michael Kostelaba, the five motions on Tuesday mostly focus on preventing the jury from hearing various pieces of evidence.
Two of the motions seek to suppress statements Ganjeh allegedly made to police after his arrest. While the specifics of those statements are not specified in the motion, Kostelaba claims they should be suppressed in accordance with the 14th Amendment, saying they were not made voluntarily.
The defense team is also looking to prevent prosecutors from using cell tower tracking evidence to prove their theory of the case, claiming that such information is “premised on junk science and is not universally accepted in American courts.”
The final two motions seek to get more information from prosecutors, asking for them to provide their intention of introducing evidence and also to allow the inspection of physical evidence the prosecutors are in possession of.
Lupas is likely to rule on all of these motions in the October hearing.
When officers first found Frick’s body in the Rav4, they pulled the blanket down, exposing her face which was badly bruised.
Police first responded to Ganjeh’s home after his brother, Danesh, called 911, telling them Dana was suicidal and had said he had done something “bad.”
For now, Ganjeh remains locked up at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, where he’ll remain until the completion of his trial.