Fred Russell: Appeals court affirms conviction

Washington state’s Court of Appeals upheld Tuesday the conviction of Frederick Russell, the former Pullman man who caused a triple fatality car accident on the Pullman-Moscow Highway in June 2001.

Whitman County Prosecutor Denis Tracy told the Gazette of the appellate court’s decision Tuesday. Russell’s appeal was heard before the state’s Division III Court of Appeals in Spokane.

Tracy said the appellate court did grant Russell’s request to be credited for the year he served in prison after he was arrested in Dublin and before Ireland agreed to extradite him back to Whitman County.

Russell was found guilty of three counts of vehicular homicide and three counts of vehicular assault in November 2007 by a Cowlitz County jury. He was sentenced by Whitman County Superior Court Judge Frazier to 14 years in prison. Judge Frazier did not credit Russell with the time he spent behind bars in Ireland.

The crash killed WSU students Stacy Morrow, 21, Milton; Ryan Sorensen, 21, Westport and Brandon Clements, 22, Wapato.

Injured were John Wagner, Spokane; Kara Eichelsdoerfer, Central Park and Sameer Ranade, Kennewick.

Russell’s appeal of the local court’s ruling alleged prosecutors made 17 errors during his trial. Lawyers with the state attorney general’s office prosecuted the superior court trial.

Russell fled the U.S. through Canada shortly before he was set to stand trial in October of 2001. He was arrested in Ireland four years later and spent more than a year in an Irish jail while fighting U.S. extradition requests.

Judge Frazier at the time of sentencing declined to credit Russell for the Irish jail time because those months passed while Russell was fighting extradition back to the United States.

Russell was working under the alias “David Caroll” as a security guard at a boutique clothing store in Ireland when he was captured by an undercover detective.