A trial has been set for a former Delaware County resident charged in connection with a nearly 12-year-old rape case.
Wesley Paul Hadsell, 38, formerly of Delaware, was scheduled to appear in Delaware County Common Pleas Court on March 28 to stand trial for two counts of rape, which are first-degree felonies; a charge of kidnapping, a first-degree felony; and a charge of felonious assault, a second-degree felony.
However, the trial was delayed to May 16 after several motions were filed in the case.
Prosecutors said last year that this case is a re-indictment of a case from 2005. Court documents from the 2005 case allege on Aug. 21, 2005, Hadsell restrained, raped and physically harmed a woman.
The case was prosecuted by then-county Prosecutor David Yost and then-assistant prosecutor Marianne Hemmeter and dismissed when Hadsell was indicted by the U.S. Attorney General’s office on robbery charges. He was reportedly sentenced to 54 months in jail for a bank robbery in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
Hadsell was indicted on July 22, 2016 and originally scheduled to stand trial on Feb. 22 but the trial was delayed to March 28. The trial was delayed again after Hadsell’s attorney, William Leber filed a motion in February asking Judge Krueger to dismiss the case against Hadsell.
In the motion to dismiss, Leber argues the only evidence presented to the Grand Jury was the same evidence presented in August 2005 and said that the evidence biases the case against his client because a number of potential defense witnesses have died. Leber also states that because the case occurred so long ago many of the witnesses would be relying on their written statements made at that time and not relying on their actual memory.
“The unjustified, hyperextended delay by the state has prejudiced the Defendant, but the state has not produced any facts to support a justification for the decade-long delay between the alleged offense and the indictment,” Leber wrote in the motion.
An oral hearing on the motion was held on March 15 but could not be completed so a second hearing on the motion to dismiss has been set for April 10 at 3:30 p.m.
Hadsell has also been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Virginia for federal ammunition charges.
According to Hampton Roads-based newspaper The Virginian-Pilot, Hadsell pleaded guilty to a charge of an illegal purchase of ammunition in November 2015. The Virginian-Pilot reports that despite being a convicted felon, Hadsell purchased Winchester .40-caliber and Luger 9mm ammunition in December 2013.
The Virginian-Pilot also reports Hadsell confessed to going to a gun range in Chesapeake, Virginia, and firing some of the ammo.
News outlets in Virginia report that Hadsell had been a suspect in the disappearance of his stepdaughter, Anjelica “AJ” Hadsell.
The Virginian-Pilot reports “AJ” Hadsell, was found dead in April 2015 near an abandoned home in Southampton County, Virginia. The cause was acute heroin poisoning, but the manner – whether it was accidental, suicide or homicide — is unknown, the newspaper reports.
Hadsell is currently in the Delaware County Jail awaiting his hearing and trial.
