Allegheny County judge scolds double homicide suspect for firing 6 attorneys in 7 years

An Allegheny County judge scolded a man who has gone through a half-dozen defense attorneys in the five years he’s been awaiting trial on double homicide charges, saying he could find himself in the position of having to represent himself in a death penalty case.

“Words get around quickly,” Common Pleas Judge Alexander Bicket told Cesar Mazza during a status hearing on Friday. “I don’t want to reach the point where you’re representing yourself in a death penalty case.”

Mazza, 32, has been in Allegheny County Jail since August 2015 when he was charged with two counts of homicide and one count of kidnapping in connection with the deaths of Tionna Banks, the mother of his child, and her grandmother, Valorie Crumpton.

Bicket said Mazza appears to have an affinity for complaining about, threatening and firing his court-appointed defense attorneys. Assistant District Attorney William Petula said Mazza also threatened him and his family.

“He’s running out of options,” Bicket said, noting that should Mazza need an eighth attorney, attorneys who would have otherwise been willing to represent him might decline given his history.

Mazza told Bicket he understood the gravity of the situation. He initially began to speak further, then said something inaudible to his seventh defense attorney, Heath Leff, and Leff then told Bicket that his client had no further comments.

Police discovered the bodies of Banks, 19, and Crumpton, 72, in May 2015 after a welfare check was prompted by Banks’ failure to return to her residential program after visiting her grandmother in the East Hills. Both had been stabbed and beaten, police said.

Investigators allege that Banks’ and Mazza’s infant son was in the house at the time of the killings, and witnesses testified they’d seen Mazza and the child covered in blood. The child was unharmed.

Court records paint a violent portrait of Banks’ relationship with Mazza, beginning several months into her pregnancy with their child.

“Cesar Mazza currently beats me while (I) carry a baby, also threatening to kill me and my family,” Banks wrote in a protection-from-abuse petition in 2014. Mazza was charged with simple assault and reckless endangerment.

About a month later, police charged Mazza with aggravated assault, aggravated assault of an unborn child, making terroristic threats and stalking. Banks told police Mazza knocked her down, kicked her in the stomach and threatened to kill her if she did not name the child after him.

Jury selection in the case is scheduled for October.