Excerpt:
A judge has warned Muzzamil S. "Mo" Hassan that defending himself without an attorney in his spousal murder trial would not be in his best interests.
Erie County Judge Thomas P. Franczyk spelled out the legal risks Monday for Hassan, 45, after Jeremy D. Schwartz, Hassan's fourth attorney, told the judge that Hassan had yet to sign an agreement to retain him.
The former cable TV executive has been jailed since turning himself in to Orchard Park police on Feb. 12, 2009, about an hour after, prosecutors allege, he beheaded his estranged wife, Aasiya Zubair Hassan, 37. She was killed in the cable TV station they co-founded, a week after she had begun divorce proceedings.