Beat-up homeowner sees justice slip out of reach<br /><br />It was after 4 p.m. on June 23, 2003, and Nenit Stafford was watching Judge Judy on television in her Winchester Road home when a man appeared in front of her.<br /><br />Give me your keys, he demanded.<br /><br />The petite woman was terrified, and the man continued to make demands. Give me your keys. Drive me.<br /><br />In another room, Wayne Stafford, who was on his computer, at first thought it was the television but decided to check it out anyway. He came face to face with a man he said was huge.<br /><br />Police said the man was only 6 feet tall and 220 pounds, but Stafford, 61 at the time and 5 foot 9, says he looked a lot bigger.<br /><br />A fight broke out between Stafford and the man who had barged into his home, looking to get his hands on a car. Nenit Stafford, 43, fled the house, where she encountered police who had been chasing the man.<br /><br />Moments later, the man fled the house, chased by a bloodied Stafford, who suffered a pummeled face and broken rib in the fight.<br /><br />Police, Stafford says, saw the man running from the house, tackled him, and the brief home invasion was suddenly over.<br /><br />The man, police say, was Walter J. Moore, then 37, of Wells County. He had become involved in a police chase in Wells County that had extended into Allen County. Moore had wrecked his car and, looking for another car to flee in, had come through the open back door of the Staffords home.<br /><br />Moore was taken back to Wells County to face charges where the chase started, and appeared at an initial hearing a week later. But on his next court date, Aug. 27, 2003, Moore never appeared.<br /><br />Eventually, Moore was captured, and on May 14 of this year, he was sentenced in Wells County to a year and a half in jail on felony charges of drunken driving and resisting arrest. But he still faced charges in Allen County of invading someones home and beating up the homeowner.<br /><br />That case, though, has never come to trial, and it looks as though it might never. And Stafford is outraged.<br /><br />The Allen County Prosecutors Office says it is a case of everything going wrong that could have gone wrong, and some legal rulings that dont make any sense to Stafford.<br /><br />It seems that on June 11 of this year, while Moore was serving time in Wells County on the drunken driving and resisting arrest convictions, his attorney filed a motion for a speedy trial in Allen County. That means the county had 70 days to try Moore.<br /><br />Also on June 11, an Allen County court ordered Moore transferred to the Allen County Jail to await trial in the home invasion case. But Moore was never brought here.<br /><br />Finally, on Aug. 30, another court order was issued, ordering the sheriff to pick up Moore and bring him to Allen County for trial on Sept. 14. But Moore wasnt picked up under that order, either, because the order mistakenly instructed deputies to go to the Wabash County Jail. Moore was in Wells County. The order has a note printed on it: Not at Wabash!<br /><br />That was all irrelevant, though. Moore, under the speedy trial rule, had to be tried by Aug. 20, and a court date wasnt even set until nearly a month after that.<br /><br />On Oct. 6, Allen Superior Court Magistrate Robert Schmoll ruled that the speedy trial time limit had expired, and the case against Moore was dismissed.<br /><br />Stafford, as we said, is outraged. Hes unhappy that he wasnt contacted by the prosecutors office as the case dragged on for a year and a half. The only way he kept informed was to call on his own.<br /><br />And hes mystified and disgusted that though the man was convicted of fleeing police in another county, he wont even be tried for exploding into Staffords house and beating him up. Sure, Moore got a year and a half in Wells County, but what about him, Stafford asks.<br /><br />Mike McAlexander of the prosecutors office says the case experienced one mistake after another. Its an awful situation for the Staffords, McAlexander said. Usually, speedy trial cases are indicated by big letters on the trial schedule, but in this case, no trial date was even set.<br /><br />What also mystifies Stafford is the ruling. The speedy trial rule is designed to keep people from wasting away in jail, waiting for their trial to start.<br /><br />The Allen County prosecutor argued that Moore was never held in Allen County to await trial in the Stafford case.<br /><br />He was in jail, but serving time on a separate conviction in an out-of-county jail, and that time shouldnt count for speedy trial purposes.<br /><br />But the court rejected the argument because the court on June 11 ordered Moore transported to Allen County to await trial. Never mind that he was never brought to Allen County.<br /><br />Stafford says his wife still begins to cry when she thinks of the terror she went through the day the man entered her home and fought with her husband.<br /><br /><br />But theres not much Stafford can do, other than know that Moore will remain in jail for a few months yet on a charge he fled police. 
