Murder suspect denies charges, is jailed

By PATRICIA MEADE
VINDICATOR CRIME REPORTER
YOUNGSTOWN -- The man accused in the fatal shooting of a millionaire doctor from Hermitage, Pa., on the Ohio Turnpike is being held without bond pending a pretrial detention hearing.
Wearing red Allegheny County jail scrubs, Damian Bradford, 24, of Monaca, Pa., made his initial appearance Monday in federal court and pleaded innocent. He was indicted last week on charges of interstate stalking and using a firearm during a crime of violence and faces life in prison if convicted.
U.S. Magistrate Judge George J. Limbert presided over the arraignment, which took less than five minutes. The government, represented by Linda H. Barr, an assistant U.S. attorney, asked for pretrial detention. The judge, without objection from the defense, scheduled the hearing for 9 a.m. April 20.
Bradford is accused of trailing 69-year-old Dr. Gulam Moonda from Pennsylvania with the intent to harass and kill the urologist on the turnpike near Cleveland on May 13, 2005. Moonda, his wife and mother-in-law were traveling to Toledo.
Donna Moonda, 46, told police that when she stopped on the turnpike so her husband could drive, another vehicle pulled behind their Jaguar and a gunman demanded money. The doctor was shot in the head after turning over his wallet.
Denies son's involvement
Sharon Bradford, the suspect's mother, showed up 15 minutes late to court Monday and learned from reporters that the arraignment was over. Before entering the courthouse, she said her son didn't stalk anyone, didn't kill anyone and doesn't know anything.
"Donna Moonda needs to be arrested," Sharon Bradford said. "I believe she killed her husband for the money."
Donna Moonda has not been charged.
According to a police affidavit released in 2005, Damian Bradford, also known as "Kaos," met Donna Moonda in drug rehabilitation and they had an affair, and Mrs. Moonda planned to divorce her husband in hopes of obtaining up to $4 million.
After court Monday, Bradford's Monroeville attorneys, Michael Deriso and Patrick Thomassey, spoke briefly to reporters. Deriso was asked if his client was being squeezed by prosecutors to get to Donna Moonda.
"Him being squeezed would be an accurate description," Deriso said.
The charges
Deriso said he found "peculiar" the wording of the indictment that charges interstate stalking. "He's not charged with the actual murder," the lawyer said.
Sharon Bradford, accompanied by her younger son, had no comment after emerging from the courthouse Monday, other than to say she hadn't seen her elder son.
U.S. attorney Greg White has said the evidence showed a vehicle that entered the turnpike near Youngstown immediately behind the Moondas' Jaguar left the toll road at Strongsville, about 10 miles west of the shooting scene. Some of the doctor's stolen items were found along the eastbound lanes, meaning the car with the shooter re-entered the turnpike and headed east toward Pennsylvania, the federal prosecutor has said.
White wouldn't say if the shooter had been traveling alone. He called the charge against Bradford tantamount to murder.
Bradford has been jailed in Pittsburgh in an unrelated case.
False-alibi charge
Charlene McFrazier, 21, of Leetsdale, Pa., the woman accused of falsely providing an alibi for Bradford, was arraigned last week on a perjury charge. The government said she testified under oath to a grand jury that she met with Bradford in Beaver County on May 13, 2005, between 6 and 7 p.m. when she did not.
After court Monday, Deriso declined to say where Bradford was May 13, 2005.
Damian Bradford and McFrazier are both scheduled for pretrial hearings April 27 in Akron federal court. The cases are assigned to U.S. District Judge David D. Dowd Jr.
meade@vindy.com