Hearing waived in deadly home invasion
BENTLEYVILLE – A Carmichaels man won a bond reduction Tuesday when he waived to Washington County Court the charges he faces in a deadly home invasion last year in West Pike Run Township.
District Judge Curtis Thompson lowered the bond for Andrew Robert Graseck, 18, from $500,000 to $100,000, saying he was keeping it high “because of the seriousness of the charges.”
Graseck was arrested in late December by state police on charges of robbery, aggravated assault, simple assault, reckless endangerment and harassment, and sent to Washington County jail.
Police said Graseck and Robert J. West, 42, of Fredericktown, lured Nicholas Dziyak, 74, from his camper at 93 McGirts Road about 8:40 p.m. Dec. 28 with the intention of robbing and assaulting him. The power was cut to Dziyak’s residence before he was beaten over the head, wrist and neck with wooden ax handles. Dziyak “defended himself” by firing several shots from a handgun, state police said. West died at the scene from at least one gunshot wound to his head, while Graseck ran, uninjured, to a nearby residence to call Washington County 911.
Investigators suspect West and Graseck, who was dating West’s daughter, intended to beat and rob Dziyak in retaliation for a dispute about construction work West was hired to perform on Dziyak’s house.
Dziyak, who appeared Tuesday to have recovered from his injuries, declined to comment on the case as he left Thompson’s courtroom in Bentleyville.
Graseck’s attorney, Adam J. Belletti of Waynesburg, also declined to comment, other than to say his client’s family was “trying to make bond as quickly as possible.”