Morning Call News
Allentown 21/3/2004
Four men, all
members of well-established families in the Lehigh Valley's
Syrian-American community, were killed in East Allen Township early
Saturday when a pickup truck ran a stop sign at Airport Road and hit
the car they were riding in, state police said. One of the
victims was a soldier who had just returned from Iraq and another an
assistant district attorney for Lehigh County.
Killed were:
George
Elias, 20, of Whitehall Township and an Army private on a 21-day
furlough from Iraq who had been feted by family and friends at a
coming-home party March 2. He was scheduled to return to the Army this
week, leaving the United States for Germany, friends said.
Danny
Khalouf, 27, of Allentown, an assistant district attorney for Lehigh
County. He would have soon been working out of an Allentown field
office on cases under an anti-blight and anti-crime program.
Joseph
Nimeh, 26, of Allentown, who had ownership in a Whitehall 7-Eleven.
Joseph
Azar, 27, the driver, who was a mechanic, friends said.
Police said
Christopher Kozo of Bethlehem was driving west at 2:10 a.m. on Locust
Road and failed to stop at a stop sign at Airport Road. His pickup
collided with Azar's car as Azar traveled south on Airport Road.
The
passengers in Azar's car were ejected and both vehicles hurtled into a
field on the west side of Airport Road.
All four
men, who friends said were returning from a day in Atlantic City, were
pronounced dead at the scene. Bethlehem Township Ambulance treated Kozo
at the scene for minor injuries, police said.
Northampton
County District Attorney John Morganelli said that authorities
including a state police reconstruction team are investigating.
"Everything
is being looked into, and, of course, one of the things we will look
into is whether alcohol was involved," he said.
As of late
Saturday, no one had been charged in the accident, believed to be the
deadliest in the Lehigh Valley and region since December 2001 when a
one-car crash in West Rockhill Township killed four young Upper Bucks
adults.
News of the
death of four popular, promising men struck a blow to the Lehigh
Valley's tight-knit Syrian-American community.
The Rev.
Sami Hayek, who baptized Elias as an infant at Easton's Our Lady of
Lebanon Catholic Church, noted the paradox of a man dying on a peaceful
suburban road scant weeks after leaving a war-torn country such as Iraq.
"We were
happy that he was back from the war safe and sound," Hayek said. "The
irony of it. He died in the safest place."
Hundreds of
people, many with tears in their eyes, exchanged hugs and handshakes
throughout the day at St. George Antiochian Orthodox Church in
Allentown, a key community and spiritual center for Lehigh Valley
residents of Arab descent. Immediate family members of the victims were
among them.
A smaller
group of mourners, many of them young childhood friends of the victims,
gathered outside at Second and Allen streets, near a home where friends
said Elias had been staying during his furlough.
"It's going
to be a major, major impact, I mean major," said Khalouf's first cousin
Semon Dorgan, 22, of the effect the deaths will have on the community.
"It's like I lost my brothers, basically."
Friends
described the victims as part of a group of young people who grew up
together, many of them the children of parents born in Syria.
Dorgan said
he knew Nimeh, Azar and Khalouf well and that the four men were
inseparable friends.
"You could
have an argument with them and two minutes later it would be completely
squashed, it would be fine," Dorgan said.
A military
police officer, Elias, whose family owns the Elias Farmers Market at
Front and Tilghman streets in Allentown, patrolled Baghdad's dangerous
streets. His father, Joseph Elias, visited him four times in Iraq the
first time after his son suffered minor injuries in a vehicle accident
there.
Elias had
completed about two years of a five-year stint in the army.
He "was
very fond of the Army and his country," said Alex Abdouche, 20, who
described Elias as a friend whom he had grown up with and with whom he
had attended Whitehall High School.
Elias'
second cousin, Shaadi Elias, said the soldier wanted to finish his time
in the Army and return to the family business.
Last
Sunday, Our Lady of Lebanon Church awarded Elias a plaque for his
service in the Army, said Elias Chadd, 42, of Allentown, describing
Elias as a worshiper at the Easton church.
"Obviously
he was proud, but he was humble at the same time," Chadd recalled. "You
could see it in his face."
Lehigh
County District Attorney James Martin said Khalouf started with his
office about two years ago after working in local law offices.
"Danny was
happy in his job. He was still getting experience, more responsibility
in his office," he said.
Plans were
under way for Khalouf to work out of an office on Second Street as part
of the Weed and Seed crime fighting program.
"Danny was
a natural fit because he was familiar with that community," Martin said.
Another
colleague, Lehigh County Chief Deputy District Attorney Steve Luksa,
recalled sadly: "Just within 24 hours ago I was joking with him and
having lunch and talking court cases and Eagles football with him. I
don't know what else to say."
Request
to move homicide trial filed
Cops: Man
killed 4 while driving drunk in East Allen Twp.
Tuesday, July 20, 2004
By RUDY MILLER
The Express-Times
EASTON -- The
attorney for an East Allen Township man charged with killing four
people in a drunken-driving wreck says his client's right to a fair
trial has been jeopardized by pretrial publicity.
Christopher
Kozo's trial must be moved out of Northampton County or jurors must be
brought in from another county due to excessive pretrial publicity,
attorney Thomas Ceraso said in court papers filed Monday.
Kozo, 23,
is charged with killing 20-year-old George Elias, who served in the
Iraq war; Lehigh County Assistant District Attorney Danny Khalouf, 27;
Joseph Azar, 27, of Allentown; and Joseph Nimeh, 26, of Allentown.
Authorities
say Kozo had a blood-alcohol content of at least 0.12 percent during
the wreck March 20 at Locust and Airport roads in East Allen Township.
The victims in the wreck also had alcohol in their systems.
Pennsylvania's legal limit for drivers is 0.08 percent.
"Community
sentiment is clearly against the defendant due in large part to the
sensational news stories, the heritage of the four victims and their
various stations in life and the death of an assistant district
attorney from Lehigh County," Ceraso wrote.
More than
8,000 mourners, many of whom were Syrian-American, attended a memorial
service for all four men.
Kozo faces
a mandatory minimum sentence of 12 years in prison if convicted of all
four counts of vehicular homicide while driving drunk.
Ceraso also
asked a county judge to suppress Kozo's confession to police. Ceraso
said Kozo had not been read his rights when he told police he had drunk
at least 10 beers on the night he crashed while driving home from a
topless bar.
The
attorney also argues police should not have been permitted to perform a
blood-alcohol test on Kozo after the wreck because they had waited more
than two hours to perform the test.
Ceraso also
asked the court's permission to question prospective jurors
individually rather than in a group, and he asked a judge to throw out
all charges due to a lack of evidence.