Jury selection is scheduled today for several criminal cases in Indiana County Common Please Court.
They include a robbery case in which 20-year-old Imani Deans-Baker of Philadelphia is one of five suspects, with a sixth suspect identified as not being part of the robbery, but of discarding some of the stolen items later in an IUP residence hall.
Indiana Borough police in January filed the charges after investigating the incident, which happened December 5th in the parking lot of the carriage House apartments at 3100 Oakland Avenue. They say Deans-Baker and Brandon Reyes acted as lookouts and Marcus Soleta and Owobeila Odey brought a male victim to the parking lot, where he was robbed at gunpoint by Rodney Crawford Jr. Deans-Baker then used the credit card stolen in the robbery to order $87 worth of Domino’s Pizza, which was delivered to the Suites at Pratt. There, police say Charles Parker took the delivery and later tossed the victim’s iPhone, cards, and other items in a trash can. All of those items were recovered.
Deans’Baker is scheduled for plea court before Judge Thomas Bianco on charges of robbery, theft, and receiving stolen property. If that does not come to pass, he will move to the courtroom of Judge William Martin, where jury selection is scheduled for the trial.
The others allegedly involved in the scheme are also all facing charges.
Jury selection also begins today for the trial of 51-year-old Gregory Gordish of Cherry Tree, who is charged with theft and receiving stolen property for allegedly sawing down and stealing more than $6,300 worth of timber from a neighbor’s property in September of 2015. Similar charges in another case were dismissed after being filed in January. Gordish also faces trial for forgery and theft in a 2006 case recently transferred from Jefferson County to Indiana County court. The trial date has not yet been set for that case.
Finally, after some legal wrangling the trial of 24-year-old Braheen Acres of Indiana is scheduled to get underway, with jury selection scheduled today.
Acres is facing a host of charges, including two counts each of burglary, criminal trespass, and harassment, and single counts of aggravated indecent assault, resisting arrest, theft, possession of marijuana. He’s accused of breaking into an apartment last September in the 800 block of Wayne Avenue and sexually assaulting a woman who’d been sleeping on a couch. Later in that same hour, police answered a call for a burglary in progress at an apartment one block further down the street, but Acres, the suspect, had fled by the time police arrived. Police noticed an open door on another residence and investigated, and Acres tried to escape through a second-floor window, but could not get himself off the roof. He was taken into custody but resisted arrest.
In the months since his arrest, Acres has fought to get his public defender dismissed and has undergone psychiatric evaluation. His original attorney has withdrawn and he is now represented by two other court-appointed attorneys.
