Murder suspects named in new indictments
Grand jury proceedings called into question by defense attorneys
BALLSTON SPA, N.Y. » Saratoga County District Attorney Karen Heggen said late Thursday afternoon her office handed up a superseding indictment against two people accused of killing a Mechanicville man and is awaiting a court date for a rearraignment of the suspects.
Nikolai M. Mavashev, 19, of Halfmoon and Joseph A. Broscko, 16, of Clifton Park were arrested Aug. 9 for the murder of 19-year- old David J. Feliciano at his apartment on Grove Street in Mechanicville, authorities said. The two were later indicted for murder in a 27-count indictment.
In a court appearance Tuesday in Saratoga County Court their defense attorneys, through motions made to the court, asked Judge James A. Murphy III to dismiss that indictment.
The motions — made earlier in the month by attorneys Matthew Chauvin, who is representing Broscko, and Cheryl Coleman, who is representing Mavashev — asked numerous questions of the court with regard to the grand jury proceeding. Both attorneys asked Murphy to examine the proceedings.
Tuesday’s court appearance was set to answer the defense attorneys’ motions, as well as a motion from the prosecution for DNA swabs from the defendants.
According to Chauvin, Murphy asked all parties in the case to meet with him in his chambers.
“The court discovered some irregularities based on our motions,” Chauvin said. “We, ( he and Coleman) are asking the court to review if the grand jury proceeding was done properly. The people (Heggen’s office) have until Monday to respond. If the people don’t respond and the judge feels they are significant enough, he can dismiss the indictment and the people can then re-file.”
At mid-afternoon Thursday, Heggen said she was well aware of the defense motions and described them as no surprise. Sixty minutes later, however, she announced the case had been presented to a new grand jury. After being presented with the evidence, voting, and returning its decision to the district attorney’s office, Heggen said she was handing up a superseding indict-
ment for the two men.
The new indictment is the same as the previous one, except Heggen’s office chose not to submit a 1A misdemeanor charge of petit larceny.
“My ultimate job as district attorney is to seek jus- tice,” she said, “and I thought it best to present the case to a new grand jury.”
As of late Thursday, Murphy’s office was looking into setting a date to rearraign Mavashev and Broscko.
In her Nov. 3 motion, Coleman sought to have the indictment dismissed or the number of counts reduced due to “defects in the grand Jury presentation. Coleman also sought to have oral and written statements allegedly made by Mavashev to investigators suppressed.
Coleman asked the court to review whether the prosecutor had instructed the grand jury on the legal term, “justification”. The request was based on a video of Mavashev’s interrogation containing statements “which created a reasonable view of the evidence that the killing was self- de- fense”.
Coleman’s motion also claims Mavashev invoked his right to an attorney during the interrogation and that request was ignored by law enforcement.
In his motion to the court, Chauvin asked that the indictment be dismissed or have the number of counts reduced because the evidence presented to the grand jury was insuffi- cient to establish the commission of the crimes he’s charged with in the indictment.
Chauvin also asked the court to suppress all statement and evidence made by or obtained from Broscko because they were obtained in violation of his Constitutional rights.
“Upon information and belief,” Chauvin wrote in his motion, “the evidence presented to the grand jury was legally insufficient to establish that defendant committed the offense(s) charged in the indictment.”
Further on in the motion, Chauvin asked the court to examine whether the grand jury was properly instructed with regard to who decides the legal sufficiency of the evidence and if it had been properly constituted.