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Court Briefs

WILKES-BARRE – Double homicide suspect Hugo Selenski has asked the state Supreme Court to hear an appeal of a lower appellate court ruling that reinstated charges connected to his escape from the Luzerne County Correctional Facility.

Selenski’s attorney, Michael Senape, on Friday filed a motion before the state’s high court.

The court is not obligated to hear the case, however.

Whether it will agree to review the challenge likely won’t be known for several months.

Selenski is appealing a Feb. 6 ruling by the state Superior Court that overturned Luzerne County Judge Peter Paul Olszewki’s ruling that dismissed the escape charge.

Olszewski had ruled prosecutors failed to bring Selenski to trial within 365 days, as required by law.

Selenski, who is awaiting trial on homicide charges in the deaths of Michael Kerkowski and Tammy Fassett, escaped from the county prison in October 2003, but later surrendered.

At the time of the escape, he was awaiting trial on separate homicide charges in the deaths of Adeiye Keiler and Frank James.

All four victims were found buried at Selenski’s Kingston Township home in May 2003.

A pre-trial ruling in the Keiler/James homicide case delayed that trial.

But Selenski’s attorney argued prosecutors should have proceeded with the trial in the escape case.

Prosecutors maintained the two cases had been consolidated, but Olszewski ruled they had not because the prosecution failed to file a document in county court.

In its ruling, the Superior Court said Olszewski had held prosecutors to too strict a standard, noting the rule does not require perfect adherence.

The notice of appeal filed by Senape does not detail the basis of his legal argument.

That will be filed in a legal brief at a later date.