New murder trial for Main Line chef rejected

A state appeals court on Thursday halted new-trial preparations for a former Main Line chef serving a life sentence for the murder of his business partner.

An appellate panel erred last year in deciding that the verdict in Guy Sileo Jr.'s case was tainted because jurors had not received adequate instructions on how to judge his alibi, the Superior Court ruled.

"There is no reasonable probability . . . that the trial counsel's failure to request alibi instruction would have altered the outcome of [the] trial," the ruling stated.

Montgomery County prosecutors welcomed the decision. "Guy Sileo was fairly and justly convicted of first-degree murder," said Assistant District Attorney Robert Falin, who oversaw the appeal. "With this decision, he will continue to spend his life in prison."

A jury convicted Sileo, 44, formerly of Nether Providence, of murder in 2001 after a trial that gained national attention.

Then-District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. alleged that the chef fatally shot James Webb on Dec. 22, 1996, during a dispute over the crumbling finances of the General Wayne Inn, their restaurant in Lower Merion.

Prosecutors contended that Sileo was under pressure to repay a loan and killed Webb to collect on a life-insurance policy taken out on the business that named Sileo as its beneficiary.

Sileo maintained that he had been at a bar at the time the shooting took place and argued that his girlfriend, Felicia Moyse - a restaurant employee - confessed to him that she had killed Webb. She killed herself before his case went to trial.

Since his conviction, Sileo has launched a handful of appeals, contending his trial attorneys provided an inadequate defense on various grounds.

Last year, a three-judge Superior Court panel agreed that his lawyers should have asked the judge to instruct jurors on how to weigh their client's alibi in making their decision. The panel vacated his sentence and ordered a new trial.

But Wednesday's opinion by a larger panel put a stop to that process.

Sileo's whereabouts during Webb's slaying were not clear from testimony, the judges found. No witnesses were able to verify his story, and many contradicted it.

The state's "overwhelming evidence" against the chef - including his lying about owning a gun and knowledge of details of the murder that investigators never publicly released - supported his conviction whether or not special alibi instructions should have been sought, the appellate court said.

Sileo could appeal the decision, or launch another appeal on new grounds in federal court, said Falin. Sileo's appellate attorney, Jules Epstein, did not return calls for comment. Sileo is held at a state prison in Somerset.