The lawyer for an Export man awaiting trial for his role in the 2017 murder of a Vandergrift woman whose remains were burned beyond recognition in a wooded area near Keystone State Park claims his client did not have a plea deal in place when he testified last summer in the trial of his co-defendant.

Attorney Ken Noga said the deal offered to Devin Akamichi to plead guilty to a lesser charge was not tendered until two months after a Westmoreland County jury convicted Walter Cable, 29, of Greensburg of first-degree murder last June.

Prosecutors said Walter Cable was the man who beat 34-year-old Ronny Cable to death in March 2017. Walter Cable was not related to his victim. His lawyer claims prosecutors suppressed details about the proposed plea deal before and during Cable’s trial and, as a result, his conviction should be overturned.

Akamichi, 29, served as the key witnesses against Walter Cable. He testified at trial that he watched Cable kill the woman and steal from her purse and that he was threatened if he did not agree to help burn her body, a process that took about 10 hours. Akamichi claimed Walter Cable told him of his plan to kill the woman while all three were in a Vandergrift-area bar hours earlier.

According to his testimony, Akamichi at first denied any involvement in the murder. But during an interrogation a year after she was killed, he admitted he was present for the fatal beating and participated in the burning of her body. Akamichi took investigators to a secluded campsite where Ronny Cable’s charred remains were found.

Akamichi denied at the trial that he had agreed to testify in exchange for a lesser sentence.

Noga testified Friday that it was not until August 2021 that prosecutors offered Akamichi a deal to plead guilty to third-degree murder and receive a sentence of six to 20 years in prison.

“There was not a framework for a deal, and I made it very clear to Mr. Akamichi there would not be an offer prior to Mr. Cable’s trial,” Noga said. “He was hoping that, due to his cooperation, something would happen, but there was no guarantee.”

During a court hearing in August, Common Pleas Judge Tim Krieger rejected the proposed deal for Akamichi, who is awaiting trial on a charge of first-degree murder. Akamichi’s trial is scheduled to begin this month.

Cable’s lawyer, Tim Andrews, has argued the proposed plea deal for Akamichi was under consideration before last year’s trial and that its existence was suppressed by prosecutors. Akamichi told jurors at Cable’s trial he had no plea deal in place in exchange for his testimony.

“There is enough here to grant Mr. Cable a new trial,” Andrews said.

Krieger, who presided over Cable’s trial and sentenced him in January to life in prison without parole, said he will rule on the appeal later this year.

Copyright ©2025— Trib Total Media, LLC (TribLIVE.com)