Despite a private lawyer’s call for state intervention, Somerset County’s district attorney would retain prosecutorial jurisdiction over the justifiable homicide of a home intruder unless he has a conflict or lacks resources, according to the head of a statewide prosecutors’ group. After a two-day inquest this week, a coroner’s jury in Somerset recommended that Matthew L. Eperjesi, 29, not face a criminal homicide charge for the April 8, 2006, death of Perry Zimmerman after Eperjesi’s front door was kicked in. State police testified they had insufficient evidence to overcome Eperjesi’s self-defense claim that he opened fire on three highly intoxicated men who came to the wrong door after 2 a.m. seeking a party in Somerset Township. Noah Geary, an attorney for Zimmerman’s family, complained about District Attorney Jerry Spangler’s handling of the case and vowed to ask the state Attorney General to indict Eperjesi for murder, but Mary-Jo Mullen, the executive director of the Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association, said she doesn’t see how or why the state could become involved. According to the Commonwealth Attorneys Act, which established the job of an elected attorney general, the responsibility for prosecuting a criminal case would stay with a county district attorney unless he has a conflict of interest or lack of resources, Mullen said Friday. “It wouldn’t make sense, to me, to have anybody other than the DA prosecuting the crimes,” said Mullen, a former deputy attorney general. Exceptions include organized crime, gambling, public corruption, narcotics trafficking, Medicaid fraud or environmental crimes because the attorney general either has statewide jurisdiction or the offenses might go beyond county borders. “Unless it’s a matter where our office has statewide jurisdiction, primary jurisdiction stays with the district attorney,” said Nils Hagen-Frederiksen, a spokesman for the attorney general. Geary complained Thursday that Spangler “fought like hell just to justify his decision to drop” the criminal homicide charge last year and called Somerset’s chief prosecutor “the most pro-criminal district attorney in the state.” Spangler, a past president of the state DA association, pointed to evidence he said showed that Zimmerman, 33, of Central City, was participating in a home invasion. During the inquest, police said the door jambs were splintered and a mud footprint stained the apartment door. Eperjesi’s attorney, Joseph Policicchio, said he was disappointed by Geary’s comments because he believes Coroner Wallace Miller gave all of the lawyers — including Geary — leeway during the hearing to admit evidence. He called it “highly unusual” for a coroner to permit an attorney to question witnesses on behalf of a deceased person’s family. “I just can’t see how the case can go any further,” Policicchio said.

---

Copyright ©2026— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)

---