Judge tosses out allegations of perjury against lead detective.
AB Wire
A convicted Montgomery County, Pennsylvania, double murderer, Raghunandan Yandamuri, 30, – who killed an infant and her grandmother – will not be able to pursue criminal charges against the lead county homicide detective in his case.
The Bucks County Courier Times reported that Judge Gary S. Silow handed down a one-line court order Wednesday throwing out Yandamuri’s, request to order the district attorney’s office to file criminal charges against Detective Paul Bradbury, alleging perjury.
Montgomery Media reported Yandamuri, who was based in Upper Merion, and a citizen of India, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by a jury in 2014 in connection with the Oct. 22, 2012, deaths of 61-year-old Satyavathi Venna and her 10-month-old granddaughter, Saanvi.
Silow, who held a hearing on the matter on Tuesday, did not elaborate on the reasons for his decision in the one page order.
On Tuesday, Yandamuri sought permission to file a private criminal complaint against Bradbury, alleging Bradbury, the lead detective during the investigation, committed perjury when he testified at various court proceedings against Yandamuri.
Yandamuri implied trial judge Steven T. O’Neill was misled by what Yandamuri characterized as inconsistent testimony by Bradbury regarding Yandamuri’s interrogation by detectives during the investigation and made various rulings based on misleading testimony, reporte Montgomery Media.
But Deputy District Attorney Thomas W. McGoldrick argued Bradbury “was absolutely honest at every stage of the pretrial motions and at the trial in this case” and that O’Neill’s pretrial rulings and the jury’s decision back that up.
McGoldrick argued the evidence Yandamuri quoted in court was “taken completely out of context.”
Yandamuri filed the private criminal complaint against Bradbury with the district attorney’s office last year and prosecutors disapproved the complaint, finding it lacked prosecutorial merit and that there was insufficient evidence of Yandamuri’s claims. McGoldrick argued prosecutors did not abuse their discretion.
Yandamuri then turned to Silow to review the matter, hoping Silow would allow him to move forward with the private criminal complaint.
Yandamuri represented himself during the hearing and he previously said he will represent himself in appeals of his conviction to the state Supreme Court.