Multiple state legislators on Wednesday pledged to begin impeachment proceedings against Allegheny County District Judge Xander Orenstein after it came to light the judge allowed a man now charged with homicide to to be released on no-cash bail for robbery and assault charges last year.
House Republican Whip Tim O’Neal, of Washington County, said in a statement he will introduce articles of impeachment against the judge, who he called “a danger to citizens across Pennsylvania.”
Sixteen months before Anthony Quesen allegedly stabbed and killed an off-duty state police agent as he jogged Monday on the Montour Trail, the 25-year-old was arrested after he allegedly assaulted a man in Point State Park and took off with his watch.
Earlier Wednesday, state Sen. Devlin Robinson called on the House to begin impeachment proceedings, and Allegheny County Councilman-at-Large Sam DeMarco, too, called for Judge Orenstein to resign or be removed from his post.
“Orenstein has released other dangerous suspects without bail in the past,” Mr. DeMarco said. “This time, it cost a law enforcement officer his life.”
Staff at Judge Orenstein’s Lawrenceville office said he was unavailable.
The judge has been barred from hearing arraignments since April. The move came after the judge released a man accused of leading police on a high-speed chase through Aspinwall, Sharpsburg and parts of Pittsburgh. The suspect, Hermas Craddock, was already awaiting trial on gun charges. He fled to Florida after his release by Judge Orenstein.
In Mr. Quesen’s case, he was charged June 5, 2023, for the alleged Point State Park robbery under the name “Antonia Kaseim,” Allegheny County court administrator Joe Asturi confirmed. Mr. Quesen was picked up on those charges — which included robbery, simple assault, reckless endangerment and evading arrest — on June 13.
The same day he was arrested, Mr. Quesen was arraigned and released on nonmonetary bond by Judge Orenstein. Mr. Asturi confirmed that Mr. Quesen failed to appear for any hearings after his arraignment. Court records show Judge Orenstein revoked his bail in December.
On Monday, he was charged with homicide in the stabbing death of Benjamin Brallier, a liquor control enforcement agent with the Pennsylvania State Police. Brallier was jogging on the trail in Moon midafternoon on Monday when investigators say Mr. Quesen attacked and stabbed the 44-year-old.
“There is no way someone using an alternate name, and charged in a brazen assault and robbery in a public park should have been turned loose without bail,” Mr. O’Neal said.
The state House is the only entity that can introduce articles of impeachment against judges in Pennsylvania, and state law requires the Senate to conduct a full trial with two-thirds of members present.
The judge came under fire last year after releasing a New York man caught with more than $1 million worth of suspected fentanyl at the Greyhound bus station in Downtown Pittsburgh. Yan Carlos Pichardo Cepeda was charged with two felony counts of possession with intent to deliver.
Cepeda was arraigned and released on nonmonetary bond by Judge Orenstein on Sept. 1. The district attorney’s office took issue with the lack of bail and called a review hearing about two weeks later. Cepeda failed to show. He was eventually arrested after a traffic stop in New York in April.
County Sheriff Kevin Kraus said at the time his office spent some $30,000 on the manhunt of Cepeda, who’d been out on bail in New York on sexual assault charges when he was arrested in Pittsburgh. The state Attorney General’s Office said investigators later determined the suspected fentanyl was a cutting agent — something used to bulk up the volume of fentanyl.
First Published: October 23, 2024, 3:05 p.m.
Updated: October 24, 2024, 1:44 p.m.
