Homewood shooting victims' families cry foul over DA's 'sweetheart deal'

An attorney who last week called for the Allegheny County district attorney’s resignation has re-upped those calls, citing more alleged misconduct and violations of the state Crime Victims Act.

Paul Jubas represents the families of those injured in a 2015 vigil shooting in Homewood. He alleges they were never informed of a witness’s indictment in the case because District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr. cut a deal with the man. A 3-year-old boy and 12-year-old girl were injured during the shooting.

The unnamed witness is alleged to have given law enforcement information related to a dozen other crimes, including confessing to a 2013 drive-by shooting that killed 15-month-old Marcus White Jr. in the East Hills. No one has been charged in that shooting. Jubas also represents the boy’s family.

“(Zappala) chose to cut a sweetheart deal with a confessed baby-killing mass-shooter without seeking input from the families of his victims,” Jubas said in a statement Wednesday, alleging the district attorney violated the Pennsylvania Crime Victims Act.

The act, which became a statute in 1998, codifies victims’ rights to receive basic information about significant actions and proceedings regarding their case as it moves through the justice system, among other things.

Zappala, through his spokesman Mike Manko, called Jubas’s news release “wrong on the law and very wrong on the facts.”

The unnamed witness’s information about other crimes came to light late last month during testimony related to a 2016 mass shooting in Wilkinsburg. He was identified only as Witness 3.

Jubas last week accused the District Attorney’s Office of forgoing charges against the witness in connection with the Marcus White Jr. shooting because the man was set to testify against the defendants in the Wilkinsburg case.

On Friday, prosecutors said they would not call him as a witness. That led to homicide charges being dismissed against one of two men charged in the Wilkinsburg shooting.

Manko said the office would prosecute the unnamed witness if they could.

“If, in fact, there was evidence of any kind that would allow us to sustain our burden of proof in connection with the death of Marcus White Jr., that prosecution would have already taken place,” he said.

Jubas called for state Attorney General Josh Shapiro to investigate the circumstances around “the sweetheart deal between Witness 3 and the Allegheny County District Attorney’s Office.”

He said the families object to the “sweetheart deal” and demand to be kept abreast of all developments in the witness’s case. They also want law enforcement in the case to “immediately refrain from deceiving these families into believing that the investigation into their case is ongoing.”