NEW YORK, January 13 - RAPSI. A grandson of Russian stage director Fyodor Komisarjevsky sentenced to death by a US court in December for triple killing in 2007 has requested a new trial, says Hartford Courant.

Investigators maintain that Joshua Komisarjevsky, 31, and his alleged accomplice Steven Hayes broke in a private house of Dr. William Petit Jr. in Cheshire. The convicts beat Petit and sent his wife Jenifer to bring them money from the bank while two daughters were taken hostage.

According to the case records when Jenifer brought the money Hayes raped and then strangled her, while Joshua raped 11-year-old Michaela, wrote Hartford Courant.
Komisarjevsky and Hayes tied both sisters to their beds and set the house on fire before going. Petit managed to escape.

A Connecticut court found Komisarjevsky guilty on all counts in the fall and sentenced him to death in December. Hayes was given capital penalty a year before, but has not yet been sent to the death row.

Hartford Courant says Komisarjevsky has requested a new trial arguing that he was not granted a probable cause hearing despite repeated requests for the constitutionally mandated hearing.

Joshua is an adopted son of Benedict Komisarjevsky, son of a famous Russian stage director Fyodor Komisarjevsky, brother of a prominent actress Vera Komisarjevsky, who immigrated into the United States in 1919.