Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: FRIDAY, March 18, 1994 TAG: 9403180227
SECTION: CURRENT PAGE: NRV-1 EDITION: NEW RIVER VALLEY
SOURCE: By KATHY LOAN STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: PULASKI LENGTH: Medium
Just minutes before the start of her jury trial in Pulaski County Circuit Court, Zelenak told Judge Dow Owens, "Your honor, at this time I would like to fire my attorney."
Zelenak's request clearly took her attorney, Joe Painter of Blacksburg, by surprise.
Perhaps it shouldn't have. In previous court appearances, Zelenak has become sick during testimony, alluded to a multiple personality disorder and helped cause a mistrial for her former boyfriend during his murder trial.
After a brief hearing in the judge's chambers, Zelenak, 21, apologized for disrupting the proceedings and told the judge she wanted to keep Painter as her attorney and plead no contest to the four charges she faced. Two of the charges had been set for trial Thursday and two were to be tried next month.
Zelenak had earlier rejected a proposed plea agreement. After hearing a brief summary of evidence, Owens accepted Zelenak's pleas of no-contest and found her guilty of two counts of robbery, one charge of conspiring to rob and one charge of malicious wounding in two separate Pulaski robberies.
He delayed sentencing until a probation officer could prepare a background report on Zelenak.
Painter said after the hearing that Zelenak had apologized to him for her remarks. He said her actions had apparently been a delaying tactic.
Zelenak's courtroom appearance and plea wrapped up the prosecution in a highly publicized chain of robberies and attempted robberies in Pulaski and Montgomery counties. The final robbery attempts occurred in June 1992,on the night Lorna Raines Crockett, manager of a Christiansburg shoe store, was shot and killed while making a night bank deposit.
Police began tying the Crockett robbery with other robberies in Pulaski after a Blacksburg Domino's Pizza manager was almost robbed that same night while making a bank deposit. Stuart Arbuckle followed a car out of the bank parking lot and called police on his cellular phone.
Police stopped the car, driven by Zelenak, and arrested her and passengers William Ray Smith Jr. and her then-boyfriend, Paul William Morehead. Crockett's body was not found in her car near Hills Shopping Center until the next morning.
Thursday, Zelenak was to have been tried for conspiring to commit robbery, malicious wounding and robbery of Jim Duke, owner of Jim's Steak House in Pulaski, who was attacked in May 1992 as he walked home with his daily receipts.
Steve Plott, a Pulaski County assistant commonwealth's attorney, told Owens that Duke was struck with a baseball bat and robbed by Brent Cook as part of a plan conceived by Cook, Morehead and Zelenak.
Plott said Zelenak was also a participant in the May 3 robbery of Mike Frost, an employee at a Pulaski Pizza Hut who was accosted as he made a night bank deposit at Premier Bank. Plott said Morehead committed the robbery and Zelenak drove the getaway car.
Part of Zelenak's defense would have been that she was forced to go along because of her fear of Morehead. But Plott said Cook would testify that Zelenak was a willing participant in planning the robberies.
Zelenak has previously been sentenced to life plus 16 years for her part in the Crockett murder and robbery and the attempted robbery of Arbuckle.
Morehead, 22, and Smith, 19, have both been sentenced to life in prison.
by CNB