Ohio prison inmate Chaz Bunch listens during his hearing Wednesday before Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court. He was convicted of rape in Mahoning County in 2002.

YOUNGSTOWN — The second day of testimony Wednesday to determine whether convicted rapist Chaz Bunch received effective assistance from his attorney in his 2002 rape trial was cut short by a decision to postpone the testimony of one witness.

Judge Maureen Sweeney of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court is overseeing the hearing.

The Ohio Supreme Court late last year ordered a common pleas court judge to hear testimony on whether the decision of Bunch’s attorney not to seek an expert witness changed the outcome of Bunch’s trial.

The attorney was Dennis DiMartino, who testified Wednesday, the first of two witnesses for the state.

DiMartino said he now works as a legal assistant for another attorney. His law license was suspended indefinitely in 2016 because of several infractions of rules that govern the behavior of Ohio lawyers.

Under questioning by Ralph Rivera, Mahoning County assistant prosecutor, DiMartino said attorney Paul Conn, Bunch’s initial attorney, asked Judge R. Scott Krichbaum of Mahoning County Common Pleas Court for funds to retain an expert witness to testify on Bunch’s behalf.

But the judge allotted only about $500. DiMartino said the cost for such an expert was $3,000 to $5,000.

But DiMartino said there were other reasons why he did not seek an expert witness to testify on issues, including unreliability of the testimony of victims such as the one in Bunch’s case.

DiMartino said the case facts were working against Bunch.

Three people were charged after a traffic stop that matched the description given by the victim, he said. A fourth occupant of the vehicle ran away and was not captured.

The victim did not identify Bunch initially as being one of the people who raped her, but she later identified Bunch from a newspaper photo.

Bunch is serving a 49-year prison sentence. A co-defendant, Brandon Moore, was sentenced to 50 years in prison. Both were juveniles at the time of the offense.

A videotape from a store showed four males after the rapes, three of whom the victim identified as being involved, DiMartino said. One of the suspects took her earrings, and one of the males in the video was wearing earrings that she said “looked a lot like” hers.

DiMartino said he doesn’t think there was any DNA matching Bunch to the crime. But the surveillance video, issues with what Bunch told a homeowner when questioned by police and the likelihood others would identify Bunch as the fourth person all worked against Bunch, DiMartino said.

He said his concern at the time of the trial was that he would “infuriate this jury to bring in an expert and say, ‘she didn’t know who did this to her.'”

DiMartino said the case involved “a brutal crime, serious crimes. To ask members of the jury not to believe that the victim’s identification was accurate, that was just a bit too much,” he said.

During cross examination by attorney Joe Peatituce, who represents Bunch, DiMartino agreed he spent a lot of time during jury selection and most of his opening statement to the jury talking about eyewitness identification.

DiMartino also agreed DNA evidence related to fluids taken from the victim’s clothing “bolsters the idea” the victim “picked the wrong person.”

When DiMartino was asked what harm there would have been in having an expert witness testify that the victim had misidentified Bunch as her attacker, DiMartino said: “The harm is that it sends a message to the jury, from a person who was not a victim of this gang rape, to say, ‘she just doesn’t know what she saw.'”

The prosecution also called Mark Lavelle, a local defense attorney, to the stand to serve as an expert witness for the prosecution.

But Lavelle acknowledged he had not read the transcripts of some of Bunch’s 2002 trial, causing Peatituce to question Lavelle’s ability to testify as an expert witness.

Sweeney then postponed the hearing until Lavelle has time to read all of the transcripts. The hearing will resume at 9 a.m. Oct. 31.