The attorney for Ronald Weiss yesterday filed a brief objecting to the “cumulative testimony by Scott Robinette”, the former state Deputy Attorney General who prosecuted the murder case against Weiss in 1997.
Weiss, who is now 70 years old and once lived in Shelocta, was found guilty of first degree murder for the 1978 killing of 16-year-old Barbara Bruzda. Weiss and Bruzda had spent time together playing pool at a Tunnelton bar owned by Bruzda’s father. They left the bar together and she was never seen alive again, her body found months later in Young Township. Weiss claimed his ex-wife’s brothers forced his pickup off the road, beat him unconscious, and took Bruzda.
Weiss’s murder conviction was reversed last spring by a federal judge who found that Robinette and a state trooper falsely claimed that two prison inmates received no preferential treatment in exchange for their testimony against Weiss.
At a hearing in January, Robinette took the stand to try to explain his actions during the 1997 trial. Attorney Malcolm Taylor Johnson is asking the court to dismiss the case and free Weiss, based on the state’s double jeopardy law. State Deputy Attorney General Gregory Simatic is pushing for a new trial. He filed his brief on Monday. Judge Thomas Bianco expects to issue a ruling within thirty days.
