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Hammond man out to defend self
Strangling suspect asks to be attorney
By Tara Deering
Tribune staff reporter
Published December 13, 2003
A man accused of luring teenagers into his home with offers of alcohol and drugs told a judge Friday that he would like to be his own defense attorney against charges he strangled one of the teens and buried the body beneath his Hammond home.
A judge entered a plea of not guilty on behalf of David Maust during a brief arraignment hearing and set the next hearing for Friday.
Asked during his arraignment in a Crown Point, Ind., courtroom if he had any questions, Maust said, "Yeah. I'd like to represent myself."
Magistrate Kathleen Sullivan ordered the 49-year-old Hammond man held without bond.
"Nothing ever surprises us," Diane Poulton, spokeswoman for the Lake County, Ind., prosecutor's office, said after the hearing.
Maust spent time in prison for the 1981 slaying of a teen boy near Elgin. He also was convicted of killing a boy in Germany in 1974 while in the Army and served more than three years at the federal prison in Ft. Leavenworth, Kan.
Poulton said public defenders would be available to advise Maust until a final decision is made about his legal counsel. She added that she had never before seen a Lake County, Ind., judge allow a murder defendant to represent himself.
After questioning Maust, Sullivan dismissed him to the prisoners holding room. He had a smirk on his face as he turned to leave.
Maust also is a suspect in the deaths of two other teens whose bodies were found this week under freshly poured concrete in the basement of his home. Prosecutors have not decided whether to seek the death penalty if Maust is charged in connection with the two other deaths.
Oak Park police said Friday that Maust lived in an apartment in the 400 block of South Kenilworth Avenue between May 2000 and December 2002, even though Hammond authorities said Maust moved to the northwest Indiana town in June 2002. A search of Maust's former Oak Park apartment building, both inside and outside and including his apartment, did not yield new evidence or indicate foul play, authorities said.
Maust told the judge he had worked at a trophy shop in Dolton for three years before his arrest, making $323 a week. He said he had $2 in his checking account, did not own a car and lived alone.
Police said Maust told them he strangled 16-year-old James Raganyi with a rope at 11:45 p.m. Sept. 10. Authorities said Maust befriended the neighborhood boy and two other Hammond teens, Michael Dennis, 13, and Nick James, 19, by giving them money, alcohol and marijuana over the summer. All three of the teens' bodies were recovered this week at Maust's home, police said.
Copyright © 2003, Chicago Tribune
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