More plans set for Kaluza trial

By PETER H. MILLIKEN

VINDICATOR STAFF WRITER

YOUNGSTOWN — Fifty potential jurors will appear Monday for the trial of the suspects in the robbery and shooting that left KFC manager Joseph Kaluza paralyzed.

The trial will be held in the largest courtroom in the Mahoning County courthouse.

Judge Timothy E. Franken said the trial of Taran D. Helms and his girlfriend, Hattie L. Gilbert, will be conducted in the fourth floor courtroom normally used by Judge Maureen A. Sweeney, and formerly used by the 7th District Court of Appeals.

The common pleas judge chose this courtroom because of its size and handicapped accessibility.

Kaluza, who uses a wheelchair and is paralyzed from the neck down, will be permitted to testify with a nurse beside him, as requested by Kasey C. Shidel, assistant county prosecutor, the judge ruled.

Each defendant will be allowed to excuse four jurors without giving a reason. The prosecution may excuse eight without giving a reason, the judge ruled in Thursday’s final pretrial hearing. An unlimited number of jurors may be excused for good cause.

Without explaining his reasoning in court, the judge ruled the jurors would be identified in court by their numbers and not by their names, as is done in all criminal cases in his courtroom.

“Courts are about people, and this is a human trial, and referring to an individual as a number is cold. The allegations in this case are cold and calculated, and I would say that it just makes the procedure even more cold,” Gilbert’s lawyer, Martin E. Yavorcik objected unsuccessfully.

Helms’ lawyer, John B. Juhasz, also objected. In his 25 years as a lawyer, Juhasz said he doesn’t recall any jurors being threatened or harmed in Mahoning County. The judge said he would hold a defense motion to move the trial to another county in abeyance until he can determine how or whether potential jurors’ views have been affected by pretrial publicity.

“This is a community that is saturated with publicity” about this case, Juhasz said.

The judge adjourned to his chambers to discuss security arrangements for the trial, which is expected to attract a large crowd, with the prosecuting and defense attorneys and Sgt. Thomas E. DeGenova of the county sheriff’s office, chief of courthouse security.

Both defendants are 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.

Helms, 23, of West Hylda Avenue, is charged with robbing and shooting Kaluza. Police said Gilbert, 20, of East Judson Avenue, drove her car in the staged crash that preceded the March 24 robbery and shooting on the city’s South Side.

Kaluza, manager of the KFC on South Avenue, was driving south on South Avenue, 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 was shot in the head and neck.

Police used a database to trace the Saturn seen on the bus video to Gilbert and found it behind a vacant house adjacent to her residence. Gilbert confessed to being involved in the crash, retrieved the pink coat she was wearing, and named Helms as her accomplice, police said.

Judge Franken has ruled police properly warned Helms and Gilbert of their rights to remain silent, and he ruled their statements to police are admissible as evidence in the trial.