Cosmo DiNardo’s cousin headed for trial after again turning down plea deals in triple murder case

Cosmo DiNardo’s cousin and alleged co-conspirator Sean Kratz rejected prosecutors’ offers for a plea deal, offers extended after Kratz publicly balked at such a deal last year, and will stand trial on first-degree murder charges in less than two months.

If a jury finds him guilty of helping DiNardo kill three young men on a Solebury Township farm in 2017, that same panel could vote to sentence him to death.

The news of those final plea offers by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office came on the first day of jury selection for Kratz’s murder trial, which is scheduled to begin Nov. 6 and last about two weeks.

Prosecutors and defense lawyers, including Kratz’s new lawyer, A. Charles Peruto Jr., gathered Monday in a Doylestown courtroom to begin questioning potential jurors and selecting those who both sides agreed could fairly determine Kratz’s innocence or guilt, and perhaps whether he deserves to die.

Kratz, 22, of Northeast Philadelphia, is charged with helping his cousin commit some of the area’s most gruesome and widely publicized crimes in recent history.

DiNardo, also 22, of Bensalem, pleaded guilty last year to killing four young men — Jimi Patrick, 19, of Newtown Township; Dean Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown Township; Thomas Meo, 21, of Plumstead Township; and Mark Sturgis, 22, of Pennsburg. Prosecutors agreed not to seek the death penalty for DiNardo in exchange for his cooperation.

Kratz was charged in the killings of Finocchiaro, Meo, and Sturgis. He is not charged in the killing of Patrick, who authorities said was killed a few days earlier.

DiNardo told authorities that he lured his victims to his family’s 90-acre farm to sell marijuana, then he and Kratz shot and killed them, ran one over with a backhoe, and buried all three inside a converted oil tanker.

DiNardo could be called to testify at Kratz’s trial. Jurors could also hear Kratz tell investigators how he and DiNardo murdered the men, despite a defense request to suppress Kratz’s statement.

While Common Pleas Court Judge Jeffrey L. Finley reserved the right to call in an out-of-town jury if it became too difficult to pick an impartial panel from Bucks County, two jurors were selected before noon. Both said they remembered hearing about the case when it happened in July 2017, but had not followed it since.

Of the first group of 50 potential jurors, only two said they had no knowledge of the case. Neither of them was selected.

A gag order prevents prosecutors and defense lawyers from speaking publicly about the case.