MAN ACCUSED IN SHOOTING WAS ON ANTI-DEPRESSANTS
Watertown Daily Times (NY)
May 4, 1998
Author: Associated Press
A sheriff’s deputy accused of walking into a school and shooting his estranged wife to death was taking anti-depressants and seeing a psychiatrist, his lawyer said.
Juan Roman, 37, an Erie County sheriff’s deputy, pleaded innocent Saturday to charges of second-degree murder, two counts of first-degree assault and illegally possessing a weapon.
SUSPECT’S MENTAL STATE MAY PLAY KEY ROLE IN DEFENSE; DEPUTY PLEADS NOT GUILTY IN WIFE’S SLAYING
The Buffalo News
May 3, 1998
Author: TOM ERNST
Juan A. Roman’s mental state is expected to play a prominent role in his defense, his attorney said Saturday after the Erie County sheriff’s deputy pleaded not guilty to killing his wife in School 18 Friday morning. “We’ll certainly be looking at his mental state and the type of medication and anti-depressants he was taking,” attorney Thomas J. Eoannou said.
“There’s a real question if he truly intended to kill her . . . Anyone who knows him from the Holding Center (where Roman worked) knows him as a happy-go-lucky, mellow guy.”
Eoannou, who said he’s known Roman for 10 years mostly through dealings at the Holding Center, said he met with Roman for two hours Friday and again briefly Saturday. He said Roman is “devastated” about what happened.
Roman, barefoot and wearing a paper jumpsuit after spending the night in the Buffalo police lockup, was ordered held without bail by City Court Judge Margaret R. Anderson during his brief court appearance Saturday. He is accused of second-degree murder, assault and possession of a weapon. A felony hearing was scheduled for 2 p.m. Friday.
Eoannou said it will be up to the Sheriff’s Department on where to confine Roman, but there are questions as to whether he should be sent to the Holding Center. Roman’s clothes were taken as evidence, but Eoannou couldn’t explain why he was not given something to wear on his feet.