Tree of Life trial: Key players for prosecution, defense in Robert Bowers case

Jury selection is scheduled to begin Monday for the trial of Robert Bowers, the man accused of killing 11 people Oct. 27, 2018, at the Tree of Life synagogue on Wilkins Avenue in Squirrel Hill.

Two additional congregants were shot and wounded during worship services that day, and five police officers were injured, including four wounded by gunfire.

The synagogue housed congregations from Tree of Life-Or L’Simcha, Dor Hadash and New Light.

Bowers is charged with 63 counts. They include:

• 11 counts of obstruction of the free exercise of religion resulting in death

• 11 counts of hate crime resulting in death

• 11 counts of using a firearm to commit murder

• Two counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious belief involving an attempt to kill

• Two counts of hate crime involving an attempt to kill

• Two counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence

• Eight counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious belief involving an attempt to kill resulting in injury to a public safety officer

• Four counts of obstruction of free exercise of religious belief resulting in injury to a public safety officer

• 12 counts of use of a firearm during a crime of violence

Jury selection is expected to last several weeks, with testimony predicted to begin in mid-May.

Summonses were mailed to 1,500 prospective jurors. They reported in groups of 75 to the federal courthouse twice a day for two weeks in early March to begin completing questionnaires that will be used to seat the panel.

Judge

Robert J. Colville, U.S. District Court for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Of note: Nominated by former President Donald Trump on March 5, 2019; confirmed by the U.S. Senate on Dec. 19, 2019

History: Served as an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge from 2000-19; previously served as a law clerk to former State Supreme Court Justice Ralph Cappy

Prosecution team

Troy Rivetti

Current position: Acting U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania

Previous positions: Rivetti served as First Assistant U.S. Attorney and chief of the criminal division

Notable case: Rivetti prosecuted Christina Korbe, who shot and killed FBI Agent Sam Hicks on Nov. 19, 2008, as he entered her house with a team to serve an arrest warrant on her husband. Korbe was sentenced to 15 years, 10 months in federal prison after pleading guilty in January 2011 to murder of a federal officer and using a firearm during a crime of violence. She was released from prison in 2022.

Soo C. Song

Current position: Criminal division chief, U.S. Attorney’s Office Western District of Pennsylvania

Previous positions: Acting U.S. Attorney; First Assistant U.S. Attorney; antiterrorism advisory coordinator

Notable cases: Song is the prosecutor assigned to the case of seven officers in the Russian GRU — a military intelligence agency — who were indicted in 2018 for computer hacking, wire fraud, aggravated identity theft and money laundering. Song also is the prosecutor for five Chinese military hackers for cyber espionage in the first known federal case (2014) charging state actors with hacking. Song prosecuted Mustafa Alowemer, who was convicted of plotting to bomb a North Side church in the name of ISIS. Alowemer pleaded guilty in September 2021 to attempting to provide material support to a foreign terrorist organization and was ordered to serve 17 years, four months in federal prison.

Eric G. Olshan

Current position: Chief of the Economic/Cyber/National Security Crimes Section

Olshan is President Joe Biden’s nominee for U.S. Attorney for the Western District of Pennsylvania. He joined the office in Pittsburgh in 2017. For 10 years before that, he served in the Public Integrity Section of the Criminal Division of the U.S. Department of Justice in Washington, D.C., first as a trial attorney and then as deputy chief.

Notable cases: In the Western District of Pennsylvania, Olshan prosecuted 15 defendants in an $87 million Medicaid fraud scheme that was charged in 2018. He also prosecuted Zachary Dinell and Tyler Smith, who were charged with hate crimes and abusing patients with disabilities at McGuire Memorial in Beaver County. Dinell was sentenced in January to 17 years in federal prison.

Olshan also prosecuted Jeffrey Sterling, a former CIA case officer convicted for disclosing to a New York Times reporter classified details of a nuclear antiproliferation operation targeting Iran’s nuclear program. Sterling was found guilty at trial in 2015 and ordered to serve 42 months in federal prison.

Related:

• More on the trial of Robert Bowers
• In mass shooting cases, stakes and emotions are high for prosecution and defense
• Robert Bowers trial: What you need to know about Tree of Life synagogue shooting case
• Majority of victims' families in Tree of Life shooting case want death penalty
• Defense attorneys in synagogue mass shooting again ask to have death penalty option thrown out

Mary J. Hahn

Current position: Trial attorney with the Civil Rights Division, criminal section, at the Department of Justice. She joined DOJ in 2010.

Notable cases: Hahn was on the team that prosecuted Dylann Roof, who was convicted of killing nine members of the Mother Emmanuel AME Church in Charleston, S.C., on June 17, 2015. Roof was the first person in the United States to be sentenced to death for a hate crime.

Hahn also was part of the prosecution team in the 2018 trial of Curtis Allen, Gavin Wright and Patrick Eugene Stein. They were convicted in Kansas of plotting to bomb an apartment complex where Somali immigrants lived. They were ordered to serve 25, 26 and 30 years in prison, respectively.

Nicole A. Vasquez Schmitt

Current position: Assistant U.S. Attorney, criminal division. She joined the office in 2018.

Notable case: Vasquez Schmitt is prosecuting former Greensburg police Chief Shawn Denning on drug charges.

Barry Disney

Current position: Department of Justice, trial attorney for Capital Case Section, since 2020

Notable cases: As a member of the Kansas Attorney General’s office, Disney prosecuted Gary Kleypas, who raped and killed a Pittsburg State University student at her home in 1996. Kleypas was sentenced to death. Disney also prosecuted Scott Cheever, who fatally shot Greenwood County Sheriff Matt Samuels during a drug raid in 2005. Cheever also was sentenced to death. During his time in Kansas, Disney also prosecuted Luis Aguirre for killing his 18-year-old girlfriend and their 13-month-old son in Riley County, Kansas, in 2009. Aguirre was sentenced to life in prison.

Defense team

Elisa A. Long

Current position: Supervisory attorney with Federal Public Defender’s Office

Notable cases: Long represented former East Washington police Chief Donald Solomon, who pleaded guilty to extortion after offering to protect purported drug dealers who were undercover federal agents. Long represented Kevin Siehl in a federal appeal of his conviction in Cambria County for first-­degree murder in the death of his estranged wife. The defense alleged that the state failed to turn over evidence in Siehl’s case, leading to his conviction. After Siehl served more than 25 years in prison, his conviction was thrown out in 2016.

Judy Clarke

Current position: Clarke Johnston Thorp & Rice based in San Diego

Clark previously served as full-time Capital Resource Counsel for the Federal Public and Community Defender Program. She also served as the federal public defender in San Diego, Eastern District of Washington and District of Idaho.

Notable cases: Clark specializes in high-profile capital cases and has represented Susan Smith, accused in 1994 of drowning her two sons in a lake in South Carolina; Ted Kaczynski, who was known as the Unabomber and pleaded guilty in 1998, in Sacramento, Calif.; Eric Rudolph, also known as the Olympic Park bomber, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to federal charges related to three bombings in Atlanta and one in Birmingham; and Dzhokhar Tsarnaev, convicted in the Boston Marathon bombings in 2013.

Michael J. Novara

Current position: First assistant federal public defender with Federal Public Defender’s Office

Bachelor’s degree: Catholic University of America

Law degree: Brooklyn Law School

Notable cases: Novara represented former Pittsburgh Steelers physician Dr. Richard Rydze on charges including health care fraud and trafficking in anabolic steroids, human growth hormones and painkillers. Rydze was found guilty by a jury in 2017 and ordered to serve 10 years in federal prison. Novara also represented Greg Brown, who was accused of setting a fire in East Hills in 1995 that killed three Pittsburgh firefighters. Brown, who had been incarcerated for more than 20 years, entered an Alford — or no contest — plea in 2022. The plea carried no additional penalty.

Ashwin Cattamanchi

Current position: Federal public defender in the Middle District of Tennessee

Cattamanchi previously worked as a federal public defender in the Western District of Washington. He was one of two attorneys chosen to participate in 2018 in the National Federal Public Defender Capital Fellowship Program.

Michael Norman Burt

Current position: Private practice in San Francisco

Burt previously served as head trial attorney for the San Francisco Public Defender’s Office, where he practiced for more than 24 years. For much of that time, he specialized in capital cases, with an emphasis on forensic science issues.

Notable cases: Burt has represented Lyle Menendez, convicted in 1996 of killing his parents; Eric Rudolph, also known as the Olympic Park bomber, who pleaded guilty in 2005 to federal charges related to three bombings in Atlanta and one in Birmingham; and Richard Ramirez, who was known as the Night Stalker and was convicted and sentenced to death in 1989 in California.

Clarke, Burt and Cattamanchi are all listed as Federal Death Penalty Resource Counsel.