NORTHAMPTON — A hearing in Hampshire Superior Court, in which a Greenfield man serving two life sentences for the 2005 murder of a pregnant woman and her unborn child at a Deerfield gas station seeks a new trial, concluded with no ruling by the judge on Friday morning.
Testimony was provided Thursday and Friday by the lead prosecutor on the case, the lead state police investigator, two other state police investigators and a former convict before Judge John Agostini, who presided over the original 2007 trial that led to the conviction of Dennis M. Bateman.
“I will issue a decision as quickly as I can,” Agostini said as the evidentiary hearing wrapped up Friday morning.
Bateman, 54, was convicted on two counts of murder and sentenced in May 2007 to consecutive life terms for killing Brandy Waryasz and her unborn child. He was sentenced to an additional 30 to 35 years for armed robbery.
Bateman’s wife was in the courtroom both Thursday and Friday, accompanied by her sister and other supporters of getting Bateman a new trial.
Much of the testimony centered around whether a key witness in the trial, Anthony Bogacz, was an informant and had an agreement with the Northwestern district attorney’s office. More information still needs to be provided to Agostini, including written transcripts and audio recordings of jailhouse calls Bogacz made between May 4 and 6, 2005.
David Nathanson of Wood & Nathanson LLP of Boston, who is representing Bateman, acknowledged that not being able to call Bogacz to the stand was problematic.
“I would have called Bogacz, but he’s in the wind. I can’t find him,” Nathanson said.
First Assistant District Attorney Steven Gagne said his office provided Nathanson the most recent addresses for Bogacz, in Holyoke and Springfield, as well as other means of getting in touch with him.
“We haven’t had any contact with him leading up to the hearing,” Gagne said.
Still, Nathanson told Agostini that compelling testimony was provided by former inmate Victor Marquez, who signed an affidavit in 2017 that Bogacz was instructed by prosecutors what to say. “I felt that he was very genuine,” Nathanson said.
Even if Bogacz was telling the truth under oath, Nathanson said the testimony revealed a plan by the prosecution to more quickly charge Bateman with the murders and expose him to “a known informant” in jail.
But Tom Townsend, chief of the appeals unit for the district attorney’s office, said the effort to get a new trial is “devoid of legal framework” and that all of the concerns about Bogacz were already aired before the trial by then-defense attorney Robert Jubinville.
Townsend told Agostini that there was no effort to set up Bateman by expediting his arrest, pointing out that Bateman reached out to Bogacz and other inmates while in jail seeking an alibi.
State Police Lt. Dan Wildgrube, who assisted in the original investigation, told Agostini Friday that his report, written prior to the trial in April 2007, showed there was no written agreement between Bogacz and the district attorney’s office.
Others who took the stand included lead prosecutor Elizabeth Dunphy Farris, John Gibbons, former head of the State Police detective unit, and State Police Lt. John Riley.
Scott Merzbach can be reached at smerzbach@gazettenet.com.