Dragan Sekulic was arraigned Friday on a charge of aggravated murder in the shooting death of his ex-wife. Sekulic is scheduled to next appear in court on Feb. 5.

A man accused of gunning down his ex-wife outside her workplace last month has pleaded not guilty to aggravated murder and other charges.

Dragan Sekulic was arraigned Friday morning in Stark County Common Pleas Court via video feed from Stark County Jail.

A pretrial hearing will be held next Friday before Judge Kristin Farmer. Stark County Public Defender Tammi Johnson was appointed Sekulic’s attorney.

Sekulic, 38, is charged with aggravated murder for the Dec. 9 shooting death of Zeljka Sekulic. He is accused of fatally shooting her as she left her job at Astoria Skilled Nursing and Rehabilitative facility in Meyers Lake.

Dragan Sekulic also faces attempted murder, felonious assault and gun-related charges as part of the indictment. The attempted murder and felonious assault charges are tied to a separate earlier incident Nov. 24 in which he’s accused of crashing into her vehicle and running her off the road outside her workplace. He was out on bond at the time of her shooting death.

NO DEATH PENALTY

Dennis Barr, an assistant Stark County prosecutor, said the charges against Sekulic do not meet the criteria for the death penalty under Ohio law.

“There was no death penalty that applied, unfortunately, to the facts of this case,” he said. “Prior calculation and design by itself does not make it a capital case.”

Ohio law requires an aggravating circumstance — an underlying felony like aggravated robbery, aggravated burglary, kidnapping or other specific factors — to include a death penalty specification with an aggravated murder charge. The prior attack on Zeljka does not apply because it was a separate incident.

“There’s just not (criteria) that applies,” Barr said. “So unfortunately, they just don’t fit.”

There also was no evidence that Sekulic had killed the victim because she was going to be a witness against him in the case involving allegations he crashed into her vehicle, he said.

“Would it be nice for the legislature to create (death penalty criteria) for this situation where someone lies in wait for somebody? Yes it would,” Barr said.

Some states have such a specification for capital cases, Barr said.

CAPITAL CASES

Stark County Prosecutor John D. Ferrero said that his office thoroughly explored whether the death penalty could be sought.

“We reviewed the investigation and talked to investigating officers and looked at everything, including the November incident, and discussed it,” he said.

None of the 10 factors listed under state law applied, Ferrero said.

Other potential aggravating circumstances include when the murder victim is less than 13 years old or when the case involves two murder victims, Ferrero said.

Committing a murder after escaping from prison and murder-for-hire also qualify as capital cases. Terrorist-related crimes also fall under the death penalty, Ferrero said.

“We take these cases very seriously, we discuss them within our office, and we do what we feel is right based on the evidence and the investigation,” he said. “If it’s there and it’s something the grand jury wants to consider and wants to indict, it’s up to them.”

“We don’t want to stretch the law — that’s not our job — our job is to do what’s right,” Ferrero said. “It’s a terrible case what happened to this poor victim.”

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