The trial for a former Delaware County man charged with a 12-year-old rape offense has been vacated after an appeal was filedin the case.
Wesley Paul Hadsell, 39, had been scheduled to stand trial on Jan. 23 to face two counts of rape, which are first-degree felonies; a charge of kidnapping, also a first-degree felony; and a charge of felonious assault, a second-degree felony. The trial was vacated after Hadsell’s defense attorney, Brian G. Jones, filed an appeal with the Fifth District Court of Appeals, asking them to overturn a earlier ruling 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 that on Aug. 21, 2005, Hadsell restrained, raped, and physically harmed a woman.
Hadsell was originally indicted on the charges in 2005, but that case was dismissed after Hadsell was indicted in U.S. District Court for a bank robbery charge. He was later sentenced to 54 months in jail for a bank robbery in Fredericksburg, Virginia.
In February 2017, Hadsell’s attorney at the time, William Leber, filed a motion asking Delaware County Common Pleas Judge Everett Krueger to dismiss the case, arguing that prosecutors violated Hadsell’s Sixth Amendment right to a speedy trial by waiting so long to indict him.
Krueger denied the motion in May and said the Supreme Court has ruled that the Sixth Amendment does not apply to pre-indictment delays.
Jones, who replaced Leber as Hadsell’s defense attorney in July 2017, filed a motion for Krueger to reconsider dismissing the case in November 2017, but Krueger also denied that motion.
On Jan. 19, Jones filed an appeal with the court of appeals and asked them to overturn Krueger’s November 2017 ruling.
The trial was vacated and the appeals case is ongoing. A new trial has not been set.
Hadsell is being held in the Delaware County Jail awaiting his trial. He has been sentenced to 20 years in prison in Virginia on federal ammunition charges.
According to Hampton Roads-based newspaper The Virginian-Pilot, Hadsell pleaded guilty to a charge of 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 that 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 reported.
