From www.citizensvoice.com- A taxpayer-funded attorney will represent killer Harlow Cuadra [pictured] during an appeal of his first-degree murder conviction and mandatory life sentence, Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr. said Wednesday.
Olszewski, who presided over Cuadra’s trial, issued an order formally replacing private attorneys Paul Walker and Joseph D’Andrea with conflict-counsel attorney Jeffrey A. Yelen.
Conflict counsel attorneys are assigned in cases where a defendant is unable to retain a private attorney and a public defender cannot be used because of a conflict of interest.
Two other conflict attorneys, Stephen Menn and Michael Senape, represented Cuadra until he retained Walker and D’Andrea last December. Walker and D’Andrea said last week they were paid only for the trial, not for an appeal.
A Luzerne County jury convicted Cuadra, 27, of Virginia Beach, Va., in March of killing Bryan Kocis, a rival producer of pornographic films, and later setting fire to Kocis’ Dallas Township home in January 2007.
