Marash Gojcaj Appeals Murder Conviction

Stamford Defense Attorney Stephan Seeger said Tuesday he appealed the 2010 conviction of his client, Marash Gojcaj, in the murder of his uncle.

In the 2010 murder trial, the jury found Gojcaj guilty of murder for shooting his uncle and then cutting him up, putting him in six black garbage bags and dumping those bags across the line in New York. The victim was found in those bags about three weeks later on Earth Day. The 2004 murder case lasted several months.

Seeger, of the Stamford law firm Stephen J. Carriero, LLC, said one issue he will appeal is the testimony of a key witness. Seeger said that man had a greater relationship with the police than the jury knew, and if the jury heard about it, they might have questioned his testimony. He called that "impeachment information."

"He was basically acting for the Police Department at that moment," Seeger said.

A second issue he raised in appeal is where the murder took place. He said the state had no physical evidence tying the murder to any spot in Connecticut. He said the state's case was built on the idea witnesses placed Vulevic in the restaurant the last time anyone saw him alive. Seeger raised this issue several times during the trial.

Vulevic was known to everyone in Danbury as Joe Vuli, including to his ex-wife, who spoke about him in testimony during the trial as Joe Vuli.

The third issue will deal with evidence about the restaurant's alarm system, which during the trial appeared to show someone turned it off and on several times. That evidence seemed to indicate someone inside the restaurant knew how to operate the alarm system during the time Vuli may have been shot.

Seeger said the appeal of a Class A Felony with a 50 year sentence goes straight to the Supreme Court.

Gojcaj, 34, was sentenced on March 3, 2011 to 50 years. The murder was proven to have taken place on April 5, 2004, but in this complicated trial, even the day of death was questioned by Seeger and the defense team, which included Attorney Casey Jordan and Attorney Mickey Sherman.