Cleveland, OH: Jury selection begins in Cleveland for trial of doctor accused in wife's cyanide death

THOMAS J. SHEERAN

Associated Press Writer

1:11 PM PST, January 19, 2010


CLEVELAND (AP) — Jury selection began Tuesday in the trial of a doctor charged in the 2005 cyanide death of his wife, a case delayed for years while authorities tried to extradite the fugitive defendant from Cyprus.

"Good morning, everybody," a slightly smiling Yazeed Essa, 41, said to prospective jurors who filled the courtroom when Cuyahoga County Common Pleas Court Judge Deena Calabrese introduced him and the attorneys.

Essa sat between his defense attorneys as the judge briefly outlined the case for the first group of 50 prospective jurors. Some gasped when the judge said the trial could take up to seven weeks.

The judge said more prospective jurors would be brought to court if necessary to get a jury unbiased by hometown news coverage of the case and the lengthy extradition proceedings.

Essa has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder. If convicted, he faces a maximum sentence of life in prison, with the possibility of parole after 20 years.

Emotions on both sides of the family have run high, and the judge ordered separate waiting areas for prosecution and defense witnesses. Essa's brother and sister were fined and placed on probation for helping Essa while he was a fugitive.

Before she died, Rosemarie Essa, 38, used her cell phone to call a friend, and gasping for air, said that her husband made her take calcium pills and that she didn't feel well. The sport utility vehicle she was driving crashed and she was pronounced dead at a hospital.

The couple's two small children are being raised by her brother.

Prosecutors believe the poisoning was meant to help a philandering husband escape a loveless marriage. Prosecutors called the poisoning a "divorce substitute" by a husband who was having an affair with a nurse and wanted to be free of his wife.

The judge has imposed a gag order on attorneys.

Essa left the country after his wife's death and was arrested in 2006 in Cyprus. He gave up a long extradition fight and was returned to Ohio last year.

His attorney said Essa ended his fight against extradition because he believed the election of Barack Obama showed America is a tolerant country where an Arab-American can get a fair trial. Essa is a U.S. citizen whose family is from a Palestinian territory.