State briefs
Guilty plea entered PITTSBURGH (AP) – A former employee at American Eagle Outfitters pleaded guilty to trafficking passwords used by the retail clothing store as well as to computer damage.
Kenneth Patterson, 38, of Greensburg, placed name-and-password combinations on an Internet posting board along with detailed instructions on how to hack into the company’s system, U.S. Attorney Mary Beth Buchanan said Tuesday.
Prosecutors said Patterson intended to deny computer services to American Eagle stores in the United States and Canada at the beginning of the Christmas shopping season last year.
Patterson was indicted by a federal grand jury in March. He is scheduled to be sentenced on Dec. 2 and faces up to 11 years in prison, $350,000 in fines or both.
An attempt to obtain comment from the defendant was unsuccessful; a person who identified himself as Kenneth Patterson at the address listed by the U.S. Attorney’s office said he was not the same person.
Geese hunted
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Specially permitted hunters were allowed to shoot Canada geese at five Westmoreland County parks Tuesday in the first of six hunts in September to cull their numbers.
“They are nuisance animals,” parks maintenance coordinator Adrian Horvath said. “We can’t control their populations, and their droppings are fouling the water and walkways. It’s a problem statewide, and I think most people understand why we’ve opened up the parks for hunts.”
Officials have tried shooting blanks to scare the birds, chasing them with specially trained dogs, planting special grass and shaking their eggs so they won’t hatch, but nothing’s worked, he said.
Animal rights protesters used air horns and shouted to scare away the birds at Twin Lakes Park. Four people were cited for trespassing.
Peter McKosky, 20, one of those cited, alleged that parks officials don’t enforce a ban on animal feeding, resulting in fattened and tamed geese for hunters to shoot.
Judge reviews plea
HANOVER, Pa. (AP) – A man pleaded guilty but mentally ill to charges that he stabbed his mother during an argument over court-ordered-custody of his children.
Judge Michael J. Brillhart said he would not consider Michael Anthony Giron’s plea until he undergoes a psychiatric examination.
Police said Giron, 33, and his girlfriend Michele Lee Murphy, 30, of Taneytown, Md., forced their way into the York County home of Giron’s mother on Jan. 17. Giron allegedly slashed Freda Giron, 60, with a knife, hit her with a frying pan and left her for dead in the basement. Murphy was also charged in the attack.
The couple is also accused of abducting Giron’s three children from his mother’s house. Authorities tracked down the children in the Maryland home that Giron and Murphy shared.
Giron is being held in York County Prison in lieu of $500,000 bail. He was ordered to return to court in October for a mental health hearing.
Probe ends
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – An investigation of a former police chief in Columbia County concluded without evidence of criminal wrongdoing, officials said.
The state attorney general’s office on Aug. 29 formally closed its investigation of Gerard Gallagher after several months of conducting interviews and collecting evidence.
The investigation began in April, several days after Gallagher was suspended from his job as Berwick police chief by town council members who said they had received numerous complaints about him.
Council President Lucille Whitmire said she’d “love to say the reasons” for Gallagher’s suspension but is legally forbidden to do so. State investigators also refused to discuss their findings.
Gallagher resigned in late April as part of an agreement with the borough, which originally considered firing him.
He has since been hired as a part-time officer in Briar Creek Township.
Suspect arraigned_____
LOCK HAVEN, Pa. (AP) – A man was arraigned on charges that he sexually molested two young boys five years ago.
Carl Edward Conser, 38, of Williamsport, was arrested Tuesday and charged with two counts each of rape, involuntary deviate sexual intercourse, endangering the welfare of children, indecent assault and corruption of minors.
The incidents took place in 1998 and involved two boys, ages 7 and 8, who reported the alleged abuse to an out-of-state agency that was counseling them at the time, according to the arrest affidavit. The agency then notified the Lycoming County Children and Youth Services.
Conser admitted to the assaults during a May interview with detectives, the affidavit said.
He is being held in the Clinton County Correctional Facility on $250,000 bail.
Woman charged
STROUDSBURG, Pa. (AP) – A woman who had told police she was abducted at gunpoint and forced to drive around the Poconos withdrawing money from ATMs has been charged with filing false reports after police concluded she told the story to cover up a drug binge.
Concetta Araneo-Benway, 35, of Stroudsburg called state police from a truck stop in Hamilton Township the morning of June 25 and said she had been attacked in a supermarket parking lot the previous afternoon. She also said she had been sexually assaulted.
Using images from ATM security cameras, police identified the man as Frank Robert Trautz, 19. He told police he met Araneo-Benway in the supermarket parking lot when she approached him looking to buy drugs. He said the woman asked him to drive her around and had him buy drugs for her.
Police said a 17-year-old girl who had been with Trautz corroborated his story.
Charges possible
THROOP, Pa. (AP) – A high school student who has refused to abide by a dress code policy may face truancy charges if he does not agree to wear the required uniform.
Ari Pavelich, 14, a ninth-grader in the Mid Valley School District, was sent home from school Tuesday after he arrived in regular clothes. The school’s principal, Randy D. Parry, said a district justice has the option of filing truancy charges against any student who is sent home for three or more consecutive days.
The district implemented the dress code this year for students from kindergarten through 11th grade.
Pavelich and his mother called the uniform policy “discriminatory” because it exempts seniors. School district officials said 12th graders should not be required to buy a uniform that would likely be worn for only one year.
Guilty plea entered_____
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A man who was shot and wounded by police during a standoff last year pleaded guilty to charges of reckless endangerment and making terroristic threats.
Michael Hogan, 35, of Easton, is accused of barricading himself in his basement on Feb. 25, 2002, after police came to his house in response to a domestic dispute. Police said officers shot Hogan in the hand and left side after he emerged from the basement and pointed a rifle at them.
Prosecutors agreed Tuesday to drop other charges against Hogan, including aggravated assault, in exchange for the guilty plea.
“We felt confident we had a good case, but Hogan was willing to plead to a significant charge,” Assistant District Attorney Bruce Thomas said.
Hogan is scheduled to be sentenced on Oct. 31.
Death probed
DOUGLASVILLE, Pa. (AP) – A state agency plans to investigate the death of a 12-year-old boy who was killed by a freight train after he apparently fell asleep on railroad tracks.
Matthew D. Jacobs was killed Saturday morning by a Norfolk Southern engine that was crossing through Amity Township in Berks County. Police said he ran away from his Upper Nazareth Township foster home earlier in the week and had been hitching rides on trains with another teenager.
The state Department of Public Welfare will lead an investigation into Jacobs’ death.
“We do a full-scale investigation every time we have an incident like this,” department spokeswoman Stacey Ward said.
Ryan Rademacher, 15, also escaped from his foster home and accompanied Jacobs before the two boys separated. He told police that Jacobs wanted to catch a train to Philadelphia to visit his 21-year-old brother.