Judge grants pre-trial release of emergency medical worker charged with murder

An emergency medical services worker charged with the Dec. 18 murder of Earl L. Moore Jr. was released from the Sangamon County Jail at a pre-trial release hearing Monday.

Peter J. Cadigan was released about an hour or so after the hearing ended. Cadigan's mother, Mary Cadigan, who attended the hearing, was seen going into a temporary jail entrance just after 4:30 p.m.

Cadigan's attorney, Justin Kuehn of Belleville, filed a motion on Sept. 12 for reconsideration for conditions of pre-trial release under the Pretrial Fairness Act, which eliminates cash bail. The act is part of the overall criminal justice reform package Safety, Accountability, Fairness and Equity-Today (SAFE-T) Act.

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According to the statute, the hearing had to be held within 90 days of when the act went into effect on Sept. 18.

The Sangamon County state's attorney's office filed verified petitions against Cadigan and his co-defendant, Peggy Jill Finley, hoping to deny their releases.

Finley, a paramedic, and Cadigan, an EMT basic, were working for LifeStar Ambulance Service, Inc., when they responded to Moore's North 11th Street home early the morning of Dec. 18. They were accused of strapping Moore tightly to a gurney and then slamming his face into the prone position, which is how he was transported to HSHS St. John's Hospital, where he later died.

Moore died of compression and positional asphyxiation, according to forensic pathologist Dr. John Scott Denton of Bloomington.

Cadigan, wearing a gray jail-issued uniform and allowed to take off his handcuffs while he was seated at the defense table, showed no emotion when Circuit Judge Robin Schmidt gave the decision.

Schmidt said she considered the proof and the strength of the state's case, the danger Cadigan posed to the community as conditions of the release, and the lack of conditions mitigating that danger.

Schmidt said at a Feb. 6 hearing that there was an "inherent risk" that neither Finley nor Cadigan would appear at future court dates.

The judge ordered Cadigan to report to adult probation by 10 a.m. Tuesday.

Cadigan and Finley were both placed under $1 million bonds after being arrested on Jan. 9.

Finley's bond was reduced from $1 million to $600,000 on June 16 before the SAFE-T Act took effect. Her attorneys. W. Scott Hanken and Mark Wykoff, had sought the reduced amount in previous motions but were denied by the circuit court. A three-judge panel from the Fourth District Appellate Court ruled in favor of the reduction.

Finley's family, friends and acquaintances posted $60,000, or 10% of the bond, for her release. Finley has been attending her court dates.

Kuehn, as part of Monday's hearing, proffered that another pathologist, Dr. Jane Willman Turner of St. Louis, would suggest that Moore didn't die of asphyxiation.

Turner's findings, part of a preliminary report, will be sealed both parties agreed Monday.

Kuehn said Turner would opine, "based on a reasonable degree of medical certainty," that the cause of his death was a cardiac event related to alcohol withdrawal syndrome.

Turner's findings would indicate, Kuehn said, that the autopsy didn't demonstrate any findings of positional and compressional asphyxiation.

One of the hallmarks of asphyxiation, "petechial hemorrhaging," a tiny pinpoint red mark, is absent on Moore, Kuehn said of Turner's claim.

"There are some real questions about how this man died," Kuehn insisted.

First assistant state's attorney Derek Dion said he thinks Denton would contest "a number if not all the things Turner pointed out."

The nexus of that evening, Dion added, was "a power imbalance" between Cadigan and Moore.

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"The defendant had power and Mr. Moore was vulnerable and the defendant was angry or frustrated, but he took it out on Mr. Moore," Dion told the judge. "He took it out on him when he slammed him on the gurney. He took it out on him when he strapped him in so tightly that he broke a couple of (Moore's) ribs and he took it out on him when he refused to take him out of that position until Mr. Moore died."

Noting that while the Pretrial Fairness Act "really breathed life into the presumption of innocence," Kuehn said in court he thinks the state has a long way to go to prove its case against Cadigan.

"This is going to be a hard row to hoe," he said.

Finley and Cadigan will be back in court for a status hearing on Nov. 27.

Contact Steven Spearie: 217-622-1788; sspearie@sj-r.com; X, twitter.com/@StevenSpearie.

This article originally appeared on State Journal-Register: A judge ordered the release of an EMS worker charged with murder