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Colton Pitonyak
September 22, 2008
Colton Pitonyak's former roommate acquitted of kidnapping, robbery
A Travis County jury today found the former roommate of Colton Pitonyak guilty of evading arrest but acquitted him of two counts of kidnapping and one count of aggravated robbery.
The jury did not reach a verdict in two additional counts of aggravated robbery, resulting in a mistrial on those counts, according to state District Judge Charlie Baird. Prosecutors now must decide whether to pursue the unresolved robbery charges at a future trial.
The charges against Jason Mack, 26, were all related to an Oct. 7, 2007 robbery of the Plaza de Mexico game room on U.S. 183 south of the Austin airport.
Pitonyak was convicted last year of murdering Austin legal secretary Jennifer Cave, 21, who was found dismembered in his West Campus apartment in 2005. Mack lived with Pitonyak that year, according to testimony in the trial of Laura Hall, who was convicted of tampering with evidence and hindering apprehension related to Cave’s death.
Mack faces up to two years in a state jail for evading arrest. Because he had a previous burglary conviction, the kidnapping and aggravated robbery charges would have been punishable by up to life in prison.
Last week, prosecutors argued that Mack went to the Plaza de Mexico game room with three other men and helped rob the place at gunpoint. The men detained customers of the illegal game room and used bolt cutters to access the video gaming machines and take the cash, prosecutors said. Mack and another man fled the place with about $10,000 as police showed up, leading them on a high-speed chase south on U.S. 183 before surrendering in Luling, according to prosecutors and court documents.
Mack’s co-defendant testified that Mack used cocaine and robbed because he needed money.
Mack admitted that he participated in the robbery, but said men who threatened his pregnant wife had forced him into it.
During Hall’s trial, her lawyer complained that police never interviewed Mack as a suspect in the case. Pitonyak testified that while he does not remember killing Cave, it had to have been him who killed her.
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