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BLOOMSBURG -- The defendant in a homicide trial for the 2001 death of a Williamsport teen will not get a new lawyer, according to the Press-Enterprise.
President Judge Gary E. Norton ruled Brian Gregory Quinn, 44, of Woodbury, New Jersey, and formerly of Williamsport, had not demonstrated that attorney Kelly Lenahan can't provide "an effective defense" on his behalf. Lenahan was appointed as a free defense counsel due to conflicts within the public defender's office.
"If the defendant pushes Ms. Lenahan away, or is behaviorally abusive to Ms. Lenahan, that is the defendant's fault," Norton said, according to the Press-Enterprise.
The judge did order a hearing to reconsider alleged conflicts that exempted Columbia County public defender's office from taking Quinn's case. That hearing will be held in November.
Attorney Anthony McDonald, now with the public defender's office, worked as an assistant district attorney when the body of Shamar Washington, 17, was found near Buckhorn in January 2001. Joseph Warunek, also on the public defender's office staff, was a state trooper who worked criminal cases out of the Bloomsburg barracks at the time of the murder's discovery. The judge himself served as Columbia County district attorney from 2004 to 2012, but has said he has "no recollection" of being consulted about the investigation, in which a criminal arrest was not made until March of 2022.
Norton, the Press-Enterprise reported, ordered prosecutors to review the entire case record to verify whether he or McDonald had any involvement in the investigation.