By Joyce Kryszak
Buffalo, NY – Defense attorney Andrew LoTempio will have an uphill battle winning the freedom of a woman jailed nearly fourteen years for killing her daughter. Erie County District Attorney Frank Clark Thursday said he is opposing the motion filed by Lynn Dejac's attorneys asking for a new trial.
Defense attorney Andrew LoTempio argued in court papers that new DNA evidence in the 1993 murder of Crystalynn Girard would win a different, more favorable, verdict for Dejac.
The DNA strongly points to Dejac's former boyfriend, Dennis Donahue, who is also charged in another murder.
Donahue's DNA was found at the murder scene, and inside the thirteen year-old girl's body. Clark said the evidence doesn't rise to the legal standard allowing for a new trial, the probability of a more favorable verdict.
He said there is no way to narrow the timeframe for when Donahue was in Crystallyn's room to conclude he was there at the time of the murder. Clark said that according to experts, the DNA evidence from Donahue found in her vagina could have been there from between one to three days.
But LoTempio sees the evidence and the facts in the case much differently.
He said Donahue had the motive, the opportunity, and DNA evidence now places him at the scene of the muder.
And LoTempio said a jury would have even more to consider if Donahue is convicted in the 1993 murder of Joan Giambra, for which he is charged. He is also a suspect in another 1970's cold case strangulation murder.
But Clark said all of those facts are irrelevant to the statute.
It will now be up to Erie County Justice Michael D'Amico to decide. He is the judge who heard the first trial and sentenced Dejac. But LoTempio believes he'll be fair and will see the "big picture."
A hearing is set for November 20 in Buffalo. In the meantime, LoTempio said Dejac will be moved to a jail in Erie County so she can be available to consult with her attorneys.
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