Pre-Trial Wrangling in Jimmy Snuka Murder Case
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September 18, 2015by Irvin Muchnick
Courthouse sources in Allentown, Pennsylvania, have told Concussion Inc. that a scheduled September 21 preliminary hearing in the murder case against Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka may not happen because of behind-the-scenes legal maneuvers. I am not able to report full details of these developments until court motions are filed by the prosecution or the defense.
On September 1, when Snuka was arrested and indicted on charges of third degree murder and involuntary manslaughter in the 1983 death of his girlfriend Nancy Argentino, his lawyer William E. Moore said he would not be defending Snuka at trial. And Moore has indeed withdrawn. Snuka surrendered his passport and, with the help of his ex-wife Sharon, posted $10,000 toward the $100,000 bond that allowed him to leave jail and return to his New Jersey home. The role of Sharon, who also was visible lending Snuka moral support on the 1st, is interesting in view of the fact that the indictment was based in part on her testimony that Snuka beat her three months after Argentino’s death.
Another interesting development, first reported by David Bixenspan of Figure Four Weekly, is that Snuka’s current wife Carole recently filed for bankruptcy. Bixenspan wrote:
“In a bit of odd timing, Snuka’s current wife, Carole, was granted a discharge in her bankruptcy proceedings just four days before her husband surrendered to police. The vast majority of the debt was tied to their house, with $94,223.59 left on their mortgage (started in 2008) and $75,025.88 on a home equity line of credit. She also owed $16,264.00 on a 2010 Honda Accord and $17,101.37 in credit card debt. The house and the car, purchased years after their 2004 wedding, were both in her name only, not unlike the real estate in Sharon’s name that Snuka mentioned in his 1985 affidavit.”
The affidavit referred to above was in connection with a $500,000 wrongful-death default judgment in U.S. District Court in Philadelphia against Snuka and in favor of the Argentino family. Snuka never paid anything.
Moving forward in the current criminal case, one possibility is that Snuka will ask the Court of Common Pleas in Lehigh County to move back the preliminary hearing while he seeks new counsel.
One of several other possibilities, local legal sources say, is that District Attorney James Martin might ask the court to bypass the preliminary hearing altogether.
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The 2013 ebook, JUSTICE DENIED: The Untold Story of Nancy Argentino’s Death in Jimmy “Superfly” Snuka’s Hotel Room, annotates our original article and benefits a women’s shelter in Nancy’s memory. You can order the ebook for $2.99 on Amazon Kindle (http://amzn.com/B00CPTP6VM) or a PDF copy by email (send $2.99 via PayPal to [email protected]). One hundred percent of the proceeds are donated by the Argentino family, in Nancy’s memory, to the women’s shelter in development at the Salerno, Italy, church Centro Evangelical dei Fratelli.