The Law Offices of Edwin Marger - Articles

The prosecution filled two tables with 50 items of evidence presented in the trial of two young out-of-state men accused of robbing coin containers of telephone booths.

A pair of revolvers, overshoes allegedly worn by Nicholas C. Pettine, Rialto, Calif., and Robert L. Cook, Miami Beach , Fla., money bags containing cash, empty money bags, a box of shells, a map marked with an inter-state itinerary and a mysterious bit of metal an inch long were entered as evidence.

Almost every item met protest -- some bitter -- from the battery of attorneys defending Pittine and Cook.

Edwin Marger, Florida lawyer, is assisted by George C. Eppinger, former district attorney and John McD. Sharpe Jr. for the defense.

JURY LOCKED OUT
State police are prosecutors in charging the young defendants with burglary and larceny.

Witnesses for the Commonwealth were sequestered in the grand jury room and not permitted to hear evidence, on request of the defense.

Corp. Robert Brady was on the stand yesterday afternoon for hours as the Commonwealth began presentation of its case.

The state police office told of checking the coin box of the Igloo, Route 11 north of Chambersburg, about 5:30 a. m. last February 25. Accompanying him was trooper Robert Derwin. The box had been tampered with, Brady said. He was sent by a radio call to Carl’s Market at Keystone on the Lincoln Highway and found the coin box of the outdoor telephone booth had been opened and coins abstracted.

From there the officers went to West’s Custard Stand on the highway near the road to Mont Alto, then to the Mountainview Restaurant close to the Adams County line.

GUNS DISCOVERED
En route to the phone booth at the Tic-Toc Lunch, Mount Newman, state police found Cook’s car at the side of the road. Pettine was walking toward it. Tropper Derwin checked the Tic-Toc phone booth and found its coin receptacle had been tampered with.

Search of the car disclosed guns in the glove compartment, Brady said.

Attorney Marger objected on grounds the guns as evidence "tended to excite the passions of the jury." He was overruled.

Defense lawyers took turns objecting to much of the Commonwealth's evidence but were turned down most of the time by Judge Chauncey M. Depuy.

Trooper Derwin took the stand as the second witness. He told of the coin box tour and sighting the Cook car. Attorney Marger objected to Derwin’s occasion use of the phrase "I believe." Overruled, Marger finally burst out that he had previously made a protest of District Attorney Jay L. Benedict, Jr. "leading the witnesses." ‘But now he’s dragging them," Marger claimed. He was overruled.

FAGNANI ON STAND
Sgt. Edward A. Gagnani, in command of the area state police substation, was first on the stand today. He told of searching the Cook car and finding four empty money bags on the floor at the rear of the car. The bags were identical to those produced yesterday as evidence and which had been found by Brady.

Fagnani said another money bag, holding $54.60, was found by him in a black plastic clothes bag in the car. In the money bag was the small dark piece of metal apparently broken from some object.

The defense reminded the court of its "continuing objections" in connection with the evidence and tags marking the various items.

Marger voiced his "strenuous" protest against the "district attorney’s highly irregular action" at one point.

The DA exploded that if Marger cared to get off his chair and come to the witness stand to look" he would see that the tags on evidence were presented with blank sides up.

Fagnani told of finding $506 in four money bags in the housing of Cook’s auto. Also fastened to the car housing was a crowbar.

As written in the Waynesbory, PA Record Herald

2 Are Accused In Robbery Of Coin Containers