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Lawyers want statements tossed
Defense lawyers seek to exclude the suspects’ statements from evidence.
YOUNGSTOWN — Lawyers for the suspects in the robbery and shooting that left KFC manager Joseph Kaluza paralyzed from the neck down argued that police didn’t properly warn the suspects of their right to remain silent before questioning them while they were in custody.
But Kasey C. Shidel, assistant Mahoning County prosecutor, said police followed the proper procedures for giving the warnings.
Judge Timothy E. Franken heard their arguments Friday during separate evidence-suppression hearings for Taran D. Helms, who is charged with robbing and shooting Kaluza, and his girlfriend, Hattie L. Gilbert, who police said drove her car in the staged crash that preceded the robbery and shooting.
Helms’ lawyer, John B. Juhasz, and Gilbert’s lawyer, Martin E. Yavorcik, want the common pleas court judge to exclude their clients’ statements to police from evidence when they go on trial.
Helms, 22, of West Hylda Avenue, and Gilbert, 20, of East Judson Avenue, are both charged with attempted murder, felonious assault, aggravated robbery and kidnapping with firearm specifications to all counts.
Both face between six and 50 years in prison if convicted of all counts and specifications. Their trial is scheduled to begin Sept. 8.
Kaluza, manager of the KFC on South Avenue, was southbound on South Avenue on March 24, when a Saturn driven by a woman wearing a pink coat cut him off and caused a crash, which was captured by a Western Reserve Transit Authority bus surveillance camera, police said.
The gunman pushed Kaluza’s car a short distance into a Hilton Avenue driveway, demanded money and received the $300 bank deposit. Kaluza, 42, of Youngstown, was shot in the head and neck. He survived, but is paralyzed from the neck down.
After police used a database to trace the Saturn seen on the bus video to her and found it behind a vacant house adjacent to her residence, Gilbert confessed being involved in the crash and named Helms as her accomplice, police said.
Lt. Mark Milstead testified that he found the Saturn with black rear-bumper scuff marks consistent with the crash and went to Gilbert’s residence March 28, asking her if she knew why he was there.
She replied that he was probably there because she was involved in a recent accident on South Avenue, he said. He asked her if she was wearing a pink coat when the crash occurred, and she said she was, he testified.
Milstead testified that he then asked her to retrieve the pink coat, and she went upstairs and found it. The lieutenant said he didn’t threaten her and she was not in custody at that time.
When she emerged from the house, however, the lieutenant said he arrested her and read her rights to her before she was taken to the police station for a videotaped interview.
Gilbert testified that she was awakened by her sister who told her police were there and wanted to speak to her. When Milstead first questioned her, he gave her no warning of her right to remain silent, and she did not believe she was free to leave, she testified.
While she searched for the coat, Milstead followed her upstairs and yelled at her, she said. “He told me to stop bull---- and find the coat and that it’s not a game,” she said. “It made me feel disrespected and a little bit scared,” she testified.
Judge Franken, who will soon rule on the admissibility of the suspects’ statements to police, reviewed the beginning of the videotaped police station interviews with Helms and Gilbert to hear the warnings police gave at the start of those interviews.
Juhasz said Helms did not “knowingly, voluntarily and intelligently” waive his rights before he gave police his video statement at the police station because police weren’t thorough enough in ascertaining he knew and wanted to waive his rights.
But Shidel introduced rights warning forms Helms had signed in previous encounters with police in Boardman and a plea agreement form Helms signed in a previous criminal case as evidence Helms knew his rights.
milliken@vindy.com