Schuylkill County President Judge William Baldwin has denied convicted child rapist Russell R. Rehrig's request for a new trial.

Rehrig, who fled the day before his September 2007 trial and was hiding in Atlantic City, New Jersey, until his capture a year later, asked for the new trial on the grounds that his attorney had "abandoned him" in his quest for an appeal of his conviction.There were no grounds for an appeal, Baldwin found after hearings on March 12 and 26.Rehrig's attorney "did not abandon Rehrig; he could not find anything to do for him," Baldwin wrote in his five-page ruling, filed Tuesday.Rehrig, now 58, was tried and convicted on Sept. 5, 2007, and sentenced on Jan. 2, 2008, to 42-84 years in prison.According to court documents and testimony, Rehrig assaulted the children for a year between August 2004 and August 2005, threatening to kill their parents if they told. One child finally told a relative what had happened. That relative went to police.Rehrig was out on bail when he vanished shortly before the trial. Later, he would say he was dissatisfied with his attorney when he fled. After he was caught, Thomas Pellish was appointed to review the case for any possible legal actions still available.During the March hearings, Pellish testified that he reviewed the transcripts and found no basis for appeal or to raise a claim of ineffective representation. He talked with Rehrig about his review, and Rehrig did not ask him to take any action.Even so, Pellish told Rehrig he would continue to research the issue should case law change. Five years went by.Rehrig and his wife, Janice Horvath Rehrig, would periodically write letters or call Pellish to see if he had found anything. They both testified that they would not get a response, or that Pellish would tell them he was "working on it."On Dec. 5, 2013, Rehrig filed a petition alleging that Pellish had abandoned him, and asking the court to allow him to file the Post-Conviction Relief Act appeal, which he said should have been filed originally.The court appointed him a new lawyer, Michael J. Fiorillo, who on Feb. 18 filed the PCRA petition.A PCRA petition must be filed within one year of sentencing. But there are exceptions, and Rehrig argued that one applied to his case. That was that the one-year deadline could be extended if the "petitioner proves that the facts upon which the claim is predicated were unknown to (him) and could not have been ascertained by the exercise of due diligence."Under that exception, the petitioner has 60 days to file from the date the claim could have been presented.Rehrig had argued that the exception applied to him because at the time he filed the petition, he became aware that his attorney had abandoned him.Baldwin pointed out that Pellish had reviewed Rehrig's case and found no grounds for appeal. Further, Rehrig never asked him to do anything else."Having told Rehrig that there was nothing to be done, Pellish might have been wiser to leave it at that," Baldwin wrote. "Instead, he volunteered that he would continue to monitor the law for changes that could open an opportunity to file an appeal or PCRA petition. He made no promises to file anything."Rehrig testified that he had specifically asked Pellish to file an appeal, testimony Baldwin did not believe.Even if it were true, Baldwin wrote, Rehrig failed to show he was diligent or that he had filed his petition within 60 days of learning of the alleged abandonment.Rehrig and his wife both testified they allowed five years to elapse before concluding Pellish had abandoned Rehrig."That hardly demonstrates due diligence. Rehrig cannot even identify the date when he realized he was abandoned in order to establish when the 60-day filing deadline began," Baldwin wrote.Even if Rehrig had filed the petition in a timely manner, it would still have been dismissed, Baldwin wrote.The petition would have had to demonstrate that Pellish had no reasonable strategic basis for action or lack of action, and that Pellish's ineffectiveness prejudiced Rehrig."Rehrig cited no authority that would permit an absconding defendant to file a late appeal, and he has identified no issue that could have been raised on appeal or any viable basis for showing ineffectiveness by counsel at trial," Baldwin wrote."His petition is both untimely and without substance."