An attorney for Andrew A. Rogers, the convicted murderer of a Penn State student, filed a motion asking that Rogers be released on bail pending his appeal for a new trial after fresh evidence has surfaced in the case.

Rogers is serving 20 to 40 years in prison after being convicted of third-degree murder for the February 2006 bludgeoning death of student Youngcheol Park.

He has maintained that a third man, known only as "Sweet," began the fight that led to Park's death; however, Centre County District Attorney Michael Madeira successfully argued at Rogers's trial that Sweet does not exist.

New evidence of Sweet's possible existence came to light in early December, though, when a $5,000 Rolex watch owned by Park was found in the possession of Philipsburg resident Ronnie Starr, who was charged Nov. 8 with receiving stolen property, according to court documents.

The motion for bail, filed Jan. 2, came after Rogers's attorneys filed a petition in late December asking that the case be remanded back to Centre County Court. Centre County Chief Public Defender David Crowley said that although the appeal is likely to be granted, the state Superior Court could delay up to a year in entertaining the petition.

"[Rogers] shouldn't have to sit in jail for up to a year," he said.

Starr told police he bought the watch from a man he met in a bar, whom he remembered being called "B," according to a criminal complaint.

Crowley wrote in his motion for bail that the descriptions of B and Sweet are "uncannily similar." Both B and Sweet are described as short, stocky "Italian-looking" males with "cocky" attitudes.

Madeira has maintained that Starr could have gotten the description of Sweet from media reports. Furthermore, he said the description of B is not similar to Sweet's description.

"They're not as similar as defense counsel would like to believe," Madeira said.

The watch was reported stolen from Park's apartment on March 12, 2006, several weeks after Park's body was found. According to court documents, Park's apartment was burglarized over the 2006 spring break and the Rolex, along with electronic equipment belonging to Park, was taken.

The evidence points to the burglar being someone who was familiar with Park, Crowley said.

"[The person] didn't touch anything belonging to Park's roommates," he said. "It doesn't take a rocket scientist to determine that this person knew Park."

The Centre County Public Defenders Office only learned of the reappearance of the watch at Starr's preliminary hearing Dec. 12, preventing them from introducing the evidence at Rogers's trial, Crowley said. Starr gave a statement to State College police about B in April 2006, according to court documents.

"The DA's office sat on it for a year and a half so we couldn't do anything about it," Crowley said.

Madeira said he does not know why most of 2007 passed without Starr being charged.

"When we were asked back in 2006 if he could be charged, we said 'go right ahead,' " he said.

The suppression of this evidence, Crowley wrote in his motion, permitted Madeira to argue at trial that Sweet did not exist, a claim Crowley wrote was "fatal to [Rogers's] claim of self-defense."

Despite the new evidence in the case, Rogers's defense attorneys can do little more than file an application to remand the case back to Centre County and wait, Crowley said.

"We're stuck in limbo, because the Superior Court isn't moving on what we filed and may not move for more than a year," Crowley said.