Jury selection set for Monday in Thomas case
Jan. 7—SOMERSET, Pa. — Sixteen months after suspended Somerset County District Attorney Jeffrey Thomas was charged with sexual assault, attorneys on both sides of his case will get their chances to seat a local jury to decide his fate.
A pool of approximately 90 jurors will be brought into a Somerset County courtroom Monday to be questioned with a goal of seating 12 jurors, plus alternates, willing to fairly weigh evidence in the case to decide whether or not Thomas is guilty of the charges against him.
State police accused Thomas of entering a Windber woman's home with alcohol in September 2021, despite her telling him to stay away, and then sexually assaulting and strangling her before she was able to free herself.
In a criminal complaint filed at the time of his arrest, investigators wrote that Thomas only agreed to leave the residence after the alleged victim assured him she would not call the police.
Thomas has maintained he is not guilty of the crimes and looks forward to defending himself in court.
Testimony isn't set to begin until March, a delay granted by state Supreme Court-appointed Senior Judge Timothy Creany to allow Thomas' defense team a chance to have an expert report on the woman's facial injury finalized by well-known forensic pathologist Dr. Cyril Wecht.
Thomas' case is an unprecedented one in Somerset County, seeing the county's top law enforcement officer charged with felony sex crimes.
But he's far from the first district attorney statewide to face criminal charges.
Thomas is the latest of a handful of now-former prosecutors who have faced criminal charges over the past seven years — former Bedford County District Attorney Bill Higgins Jr., among them.
Unlike Thomas' case, most of those high-profile cases never made it to trial, with plea agreements instead yielding sentences that led those prosecutors to surrender their law licenses. (One, Bradford County District Attorney Chad Salsman, spent more than a year in prison for intimidating clients for sex in 2021.)
Another, like Thomas, exercised his Sixth Amendment right to a public trial.
In 2019, Mercer County jurors were tasked with weighing evidence against former District Attorney Miles Karson in a case alleging he influenced criminal cases involving a heroin addict.
Prosecutors said the woman was a romantic partner, which Karson denied.
Given the high-profile nature of the case, Mercer County officials assembled a "larger pool" of potential jurors for selection — and was able to seat a jury in just two days, according to Mercer County Court Administrator Bo McCleary, who joined the office in 2020.
He said even when cases get more public attention, judges and attorneys are almost always able to find citizens willing to withhold judgment and decide a case fairly.
"(Potential) jurors that come in are pretty open-minded, overall. They're willing to listen," McCleary said.
Karson, unlike Thomas, faced only misdemeanors. He ended up receiving four years probation, 300 hours of community service and was disbarred from continuing to practice law, records show.
Thomas took a leave of absence from his job after charges were filed. With his law license suspended, he cannot serve as district attorney or oversee the office.
His former first assistant, Molly Metzgar, now serves as acting district attorney.
Thomas is being represented by Allegheny County defense attorneys Ryan Tutera and Eric Jackson Lurie.
The state Office of Attorney General is prosecuting Thomas.
Senior deputies Tom Mutschler and Patrick Schulte are handling the case on behalf of the state.
David Hurst is a reporter for The Tribune-Democrat. Follow him on Twitter @TDDavidHurst.
