By Tom Waring
Times Staff Writer
Denis Calderon was scheduled to be in court this Friday for a routine status hearing as he appeals his criminal conviction.
The hearing will take place as scheduled, but the stakes were just raised by a key ruling of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Calderon, who’ll turn 36 on Monday, was convicted in 1997 of aggravated assault and other charges following the August 1996 beating of 18-year-old Christian Saladino on an Oxford Circle street corner.
Julio Maldanado, Calderon’s 36-year-old cousin from New York, was also found guilty.
Both men served 32 months of their sentences of two and a half to 10 years in prison.
Meanwhile, Saladino died of his injuries in September 1998.
Calderon and Maldanado were rearrested on murder charges but acquitted.
In April 2000, Common Pleas Court Judge Gregory Smith upheld an appeal by the two inmates that they had received ineffective legal representation at their original trial. The two men went free.
The district attorney’s office appealed Smith’s decision to Pennsylvania Superior Court, which in July 2002 unanimously reversed the judge’s decision and reinstated the original sentence.
Smith allowed the pair to remain free as they appealed the Superior Court decision to the state Supreme Court.
Calderon appealed within the required 30 days, but due to a mixup, Maldanado never appealed.
Prosecutors didn’t learn of the failure to appeal until a year later, and Maldanado was sent back to prison on July 28 of this year.
Two weeks ago, the Supreme Court rejected a review of Calderon’s appeal.
Michael McDermott, Calderon’s attorney, acknowledges that Smith likely will send his client back to prison on Friday. He is reviewing his appeal options.
Like Maldanado, Calderon — assuming he’s returned to prison — is eligible to apply for a parole hearing because he’s served more than the minimum sentence.
The attack took place in the early-morning hours of Aug. 4, 1996 at the intersection of Frontenac and Rosalie streets, a few blocks from Saladino’s Scattergood Street home.
Saladino, who had just graduated with honors two months earlier from Cardinal Dougherty High School, was hit in the head with a baseball bat and The Club.
He died two years later at his home.
On the night of the incident, Maldanado was visiting Calderon’s Rosalie Street house.
The cousins decided to walk to the nearby Frontenac Bar when they encountered a group of young white people.
“What the f—- are you spics doing in this neighborhood?” Calderon claims one of the white people said.
Calderon, in a recent interview at the Times office, contends that bottles were thrown at him and his cousin.
The two eventually were surrounded.
According to Calderon, he was punched, knocked to the ground and bloodied.
He ran to his house to check on his wife, and grabbed a baseball bat on his way back outside.
Calderon acknowledges swinging the bat to clear the crowd so he could find his cousin.
Police arrived, handcuffed Calderon and placed him in a squad car.
At trial, evidence showed that Maldanado hit Saladino — described by prosecutors as an innocent bystander — with The Club.
While the teen was on the ground, prosecutors said Calderon hit him with the bat.
Calderon denies hitting Saladino, calling himself the “victim.”
“I never touched him. Never,” he said.
Calderon said he has not apologized to Pat and Bernadette Saladino, Christian’s parents, because he is innocent.
“I can’t say sorry to something I did not do,” he said.
Calderon said he and his cousin deserve to be free.
“We should have never done one day in jail,” he said. ••
Reporter Tom Waring can be reached at 215-354-3034 or twaring@phillynews.com