Commonwealth v. Saylor

Upon jury verdicts, the defendant William N. Saylor was convicted of kidnapping, extortion, and assault and battery.

In outline, these are the facts which the jury could have found. Henry Marcinowski, down on his luck, lived in his car in March, 1985. That vehicle’s engine “seized up” and Marcinowski literally coasted into Hadley Foreign Auto Works, at which the defendant worked as a mechanic. The defendant diagnosed Marcinowski’s car as beyond repair for any reasonable cost and told Marcinowski about a 1965 Chevrolet the garage had for sale for $400.

That proposition was of interest to…