Judge who overturned Unity couple's convictions in teen rape case to oversee retrial

A Westmoreland County judge refused to remove himself from the pending retrial of a Unity couple convicted two years ago in the rape of a teen girl.

Common Pleas Court Judge Tim Krieger said prosecutors failed “to assert any rational, objective basis” for his recusal in the cases of Bruce Palmer and Marie A. Farabaugh.

Jurors in 2018 convicted Palmer, 34, of rape, statutory sexual assault, aggravated indecent assault and 10 other related counts in connection with crimes that the teen claimed were committed over three years, ending in 2014. Palmer maintained his innocence and claimed his accuser, who was 19 at the time of the trial, concocted the rape allegations. He was sentenced to serve four-to-eight years in prison.

The jury also found Farabaugh, 42, guilty of child endangerment and reckless endangerment for not intervening and stopping the alleged sexual assaults.

Krieger last year overturned both convictions and ruled that the accuser’s trial testimony was vague and that her emotional outbursts in and outside of the courtroom could have potentially swayed jurors. The state Superior Court affirmed Krieger’s decision to overturn.

Prosecutors sought to have the cases assigned to another judge, claiming Krieger had previously determined the accuser lacks credibility and would be unable to impartially reassess her testimony during a retrial.

In his court opinions denying the recusal on Friday, Krieger said he has no biases and wrote that his decision to overturn the convictions were the result of a faulty prosecution.

“This failure of the commonwealth, along with the other contradictory testimony presented, the timing and context of the alleged victim’s initial complaints and her displays of overly dramatic, excessive emotion while not on the witness stand but in close proximity to the jury served as the basis for the court’s decision,” Krieger wrote

Palmer and Farabaugh are tentatively scheduled to be tried again beginning Oct. 5.