Pizzabearing burglar is held for trial

The Delaware County man who allegedly burglarized a West Chester apartment and was later identified in part because of a distinctive slice of pizza he shared with a neighbor of the victims continues to be held in Chester County Prison.

Emmanuel Cesar Biche was held for trial in Common Pleas Court Friday after a preliminary hearing before Magisterial District Judge Marian Vito, who ruled that the prosecution had presented enough evidence to hold the 23-yearold Lansdowne man on charges of felony burglary, theft by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, and criminal trespass.

Vito declined to take the suggestion, however, of Biche’s attorney, Assistant Public Defender William Shehwen III, that she reduce bail in the case so he could win his release. Biche has been held in prison since he was picked up on a bench warrant Dec. 17.

The judge reminded Shehwen that she had issued a bench warrant for Biche because he purposefully refused to attend his first scheduled preliminary hearing in early December. She said she had no assurance that if released, Biche would not again decided to abscond.

“He needs to be at a secure facility,” Vito said. “He doesn’t need to be roaming (the streets) and not coming to court.”

Biche seemed to reluctantly accept the fact that he would continue to be held awaiting trial, since he was unable to post the $2,500 bail.

He was initially charged in November after West Chester Police Detective Robert Kuehn was able to identify him because he

seen with an unusually large slice of pizza the night of the burglary at a home in the 400 block of South High Street on Nov. 12.

In his testimony at the preliminary hearing, under questioning from Assistant District Attorney John McCall, Kuehn said that the burglary had occurred overnight in a second-floor apartment of the

house. Earlier that night, a party had been held at the downstairs apartment, at which a man appeared with the large pizza slices, one of which he offered to share with a resident of the apartment while they played video games. The resident assumed he was friends with others at the party and did not question his presence, although he did not know him.

Later, a resident of the second-floor apartment encountered the man inside the apartment, which had been chain locked from the inside. He, too,

assumed the man was friends with others and left him alone. Later, he found several items missing, included electronics and some clothing. Those items were found later by SEPTA police on a bus from West Chester.

Kuehn said he recognized the pizza as coming from the Lorenzo & Sons restaurant on East Gay Street, which features extra-large slices as its trademark. Kuehn went to the shop and was able to look at video footage from that night. He spotted a man fitting the description

that he’d been given ordering pizza around 2:30 a.m. Nov. 12. He was able to match video taken from the apartment showing the suspect leaving the apartment with a duffel bag with video footage from Lorenzo’s. He testified that the apartment residents had later identified the Lorenzo’s suspect with the man they had encountered.

Biche was identified after Kuehn posted a photograph of the suspect on the West Chester police Facebook page. Several callers said they had attended WCU with him. One caller

said she had seen Biche the morning of Nov. 12, standing outside a bar on West Gay Street.

Shehwen had objected to much of Kuehn’s testimony because he said it was based on secondor third-hand accounts from what others had told Kuehn instead of what he himself had observed. He argued that Vito should not allow the testimony because it was impermissible hearsay, but she overruled him.

Shehwen, in his motion for bail, said that his client would agree to be released

to a mental health facility instead of sitting in prison, which would likely be for a longer period of time than any jail sentence he would receive should he plead guilty in the case, since he has no prior criminal record and most of the stolen items were recovered.

But Vito said that although she would be receptive to such a plan, there was nothing in place Friday for her to rely on.