KINGSTON – Fifty-one-year-old Gregory Thayer was sentenced to 25 in prison for shooting and killing his best friend, Bruce Swierc, in September 2021 in the Town of Ulster. Thayer is claiming he didn’t receive a fair trial as a result of a clandestine meeting between his co-counsel and the clerk for Ulster County Court Judge Bryan Rounds, who was presiding over Thayer’s bench trial.
Thayer’s co-counsel for the murder trial, Andrew Kossover says he had a meeting with Rounds’ Clerk, William Ghee, in which Ghee said Judge Rounds would prefer the defense argue that Thayer suffered from “extreme emotional disturbance” when he shot his friend in the head. Ghee, according to an affidavit sworn to by Kossover, swore Kossover to secrecy to the point that he could not discuss the meeting with Thayer’s lead counsel, Robert Gottlieb.
Allegations in the appeal filed by Thayer’s new attorney, Joel; Rudin, say that the prosecutor for the case, Emmanuel Nneji, who is now the Ulster County DA, was assisted by Ghee, the clerk accused of the secret meeting.
Acting Supreme Court Judge Roger McDonough, sitting in Albany County, has called for an evidentiary hearing to determine what, if any, improprieties occurred in Thayer’s trial. The hearing will determine, among other things, if the secret meeting violated Thayer’s rights under the Sixth Amendment of the US Constitution to the extent that a new trial is warranted.
