Missing murder case info at issue

BY MIRANDA VAGG/vaggm@gnnewspaper.com

October 19, 2006 10:24 am

— ALBION — The lawyer for a former Orleans County man charged with murder in the 1986 death of a Ridgeway man told Judge Robert C. Noonan on Tuesday that she is working at a disadvantage because she doesn’t have much of the case file.
Fonda Dawn Kubiak, the lawyer for Paul D. Rutherford Sr., claimed during court proceedings that the case against her client was lacking critical information.
Kubiak said several of her motions were speculative because she has been unable to review other court documents regarding the homicide case.
The court documents from the case of Harry Ayrhart, who was convicted of second-degree murder, contain 1,500 pages of information and have been in the possession of Niagara County Assistant District Attorney Holly Sloma. Sloma said she has yet to turn the files over to Kubiak because they are in the process of being translated into computer files and copied onto disks.
“I have no problem with them, for trial purposes, digitizing the file,” Kubiak said. But she said she needs to review those files in order to better represent her client.
Rutherford, 54, was arrested in July for his alleged connection in the killing of 19-year-old Randy J. Neal.
Despite Ayrhart’s conviction, the case remained open while police continued their investigation. Neal’s throat had been slit and his body was inflicted with stab wounds.
Noonan admitted the situation regarding the case documents isn’t normal. “It is a bit irregular that a file of the court has been removed from the court,” the judge said.
Noonan said without access to the Ayrhart files the trial cannot stay on schedule. The three parties agreed that Kubiak would be able to gain access to the file by Oct. 27.
Rutherford is currently being held without bail at the Orleans County Jail. He will appear in court again on Nov. 22.
Contact Miranda Vagg at (585) 798-1400, Ext. 2225.