State briefs
Tipster alerts cops ERIE, Pa. (AP) – There are bad checks, and then there are really bad checks.
Erie police said Thomas Leretsis Sr., already in jail on burglary and bad check charges, concocted a scheme for his two teenage children to create fake checks using a computer that they planned to cash to post his bail.
Leretsis now faces additional charges of corruption of minors, criminal conspiracy, forgery, and theft by deception. Police said it’s not clear whether they will charge his 15-year-old daughter and 17-year-old son.
A tipster alerted police to the alleged scheme and an undercover police officer picked up one of the bogus checks from the suspect’s children to cash as part of the plan this week, police said.
The teens had the capability to create about 150 checks worth more than $30,000. Leretsis needed about $4,000 to get out of jail.
Bids come in high
PITTSBURGH (AP) – The Port Authority of Allegheny County is prepared to throw a lot of money into a big hole in the ground – but not as much as the low bidder proposed for the first phase of a project to dig a new subway tunnel under the Allegheny River.
The authority wants to extend the city’s light-rail line, known in Pittsburgh as the “T,” from downtown to the North Shore, where Heinz Field and PNC Park are located.
They’ve budgeted the project at $393 million, including some $70.7 million for the first phase of the dig.
The lowest of three bids opened Tuesday for the first phase was nearly 25 percent higher: $87.8 million.
Authority officials said they’ll decide in a few weeks whether to accept the bid from Kenny Construction of Wheeling, Ill., or rebid the project.
Program stalls
PITTSBURGH (AP) – Rats!
That’s the sentiment of some on Pittsburgh City Council who are fed up with a dispute between the city and 10 animal control officers, most of whom have refused to take a certification test in rodent control.
The city’s rat control program stalled this summer because only two of the 10 officers agreed to pay a $60 fee to the state Department of Agriculture to be certified.
Supervisors had promised the workers the city would reimburse them for the tests. Four of the workers refused to pay up front and weren’t allowed to take the test. Four refused to take the test unless the city pays the money first. Two paid the fee.
Complaints about rats have grown ever since the city cut its rodent control program to control costs in 2003. In 2002, there were just 37 rat complaints in the city; in 2003 there were 81 and last year there were 136 complaints.
Councilman Bill Peduto said if the city won’t voucher the cost of the tests, he’ll try to pay for them from his own council district account.
Charges denied
PITTSBURGH (AP) – The former head of a defunct Robinson Township Alzheimer’s home testified she never falsified records, as federal prosecutors alleged.
“I never directed anybody to falsify anything,” said Martha Bell, 59, when she took the witness stand in her own defense Tuesday. Closing arguments are expected Thursday in her U.S. District Court trial in Pittsburgh.
Bell of West Mifflin, headed the Ronald Reagan Atrium One Nursing and Rehabilitation Center.
Bell and the home’s parent corporation, the Alzheimer’s Disease Alliance of Western Pennsylvania, were accused of fabricating records to cover up inadequate patient care and defrauding Medicare and Medicaid of $7 million dollars from 1999 to 2003.
Among other things, former food service director Susan Cohen last week testified that her food budget for 110 people was originally $3,000 a week, but that Bell wanted her to cut that to $300 a week, which Cohen said was impossible. She testified that various food vendors stopped serving the home after it ran up hundreds of thousands of dollars in debt.
Enrollment doubled
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – Rather than a threat, St. John’s Episcopal Church viewed J.K. Rowling’s Harry Potter tales as a teaching opportunity, and doubled its average vacation Bible school enrollment.
This summer the theme is “Wizards and Wonders: The Journey with Harry Potter,” as preschoolers take flying lessons on miniature broomsticks at a makeshift Hogwarts School of Wizardry and Witchcraft, older students play a game of Quidditch, and more than 100 youngsters get Bible verse in their daily owl mail.
“The two offer a slew of parallel lessons,” said the Rev. Robyn Szoke. “One of the most important things we can do is touch the children where they are. We take something the children love and enjoy and infuse it with Scripture.”
When reading the Bible, said Ann Van, 12, “You have to imagine to believe it.”
“Harry Potter is the same,” Van said. “They talk a lot about friendship and cooperation in both the Harry Potter books and the Bible.”
Drug testing set
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – Cumberland Valley school officials say they will institute drug testing and want to enlist parents to help deal with student drug and alcohol abuse.
In a May survey of 615 students in ninth through 12th grades, more than 70 percent reported using alcohol at least once, more than the national average.
Of the seniors surveyed, 84 percent reported using alcohol at least once, compared with the 76.8 percent nationally.
More than 40 percent of the Cumberland Valley School District students said they had consumed alcohol within 30 days, 14 percent said they had been drunk or high in school, and 44 percent said they didn’t believe adults in their neighborhoods thought underage drinking was wrong.
“The most disheartening finding of the survey is that so many students believe adults don’t mind if they drink,” school board President Karen Christie said. “We need to work with the community on this. The district can’t do it alone.”
The district is instituting a random drug-testing program for students involved in sports, clubs and other activities that Walker said will give students a reason to refuse offers to drink and use drugs.
Plea entered
BELLEFONTE, Pa. (AP) – A former Penn State student accused of giving his girlfriend a drug that killed her in 2001 pleaded no contest to three charges.
Chiho L. Chan, 26, pleaded no contest Tuesday to counts of delivery of Ecstasy, possession with intent to deliver Ecstasy, and possession of Ecstasy. President Judge Charles C. Brown Jr. scheduled sentencing for Sept. 16.
Assistant District Attorney Karen Kuebler said Chan could face a sentence of 21/2 to 5 years in prison and fines of up to $15,000.Chan was free on $175,000 bail. His attorney, Roy Lisko, declined to comment.
Chan was arrested in May 2002, about six months after the death of Stephanie Yau. Chan and Yau had been at an all-night party on Nov. 4, 2001, according to court records.
Chan told police he bought two Ecstasy pills, took one and gave Yau the other. He took Yau to the hospital when she began slipping in and out of consciousness, court records said. She was flown to Geisinger Medical Center in Danville, where she was placed on respiratory and circulatory support.
Yau’s family decided to have her taken off life support the next day, court records said. An autopsy indicated she died of an overdose of Ecstasy.
Proposal detailed
EASTON, Pa. (AP) – Northampton Community College officials propose using money from a county hotel tax to help pay for a hospitality and tourism training center at its $10 million satellite campus in South Bethlehem.
The training center would occupy one floor of the six-story, 170,000-square-foot former Bethlehem Steel office building that the college recently purchased, and would include nine classrooms, a computer lab and areas to simulate hotel and restaurant operations.
Northampton County Council members hammering out details of the tax say the college’s request for $750,000 over 10 years may be more than the county can afford.
The county council is expected to introduce a bill Thursday to replace the current 3.5 percent hotel tax, expiring Sept. 3, with a 4 percent tax that would generate an additional $88,000 a year.
Council President J. Michael Dowd said Tuesday the college’s plan would be an appropriate use of hotel tax money, though revenue is also allocated for grants to tourism-related organizations such as the National Canal Museum and Musikfest, and the new tax makes revenue available for open space preservation projects.
“To what level and what length we would fund this is a topic for some discussion,” Dowd said.
Fees proposed
BETHLEHEM, Pa. (AP) – After decades of allowing developers to hook into its sewer system without tapping fees, Bethlehem proposes fees that would raise $500,000 to $1 million a year.
Mayor John Callahan’s administration proposes a tapping fee that could affect new projects like the 17-story high-rise pitched for North Street and the 1,600-acre Bethlehem Commerce Center at the old Bethlehem Steel plant.
Developers would pay $2,527 per unit, a measurement equivalent to the average household using 250 gallons of water a day. The fee could be more than $1 million for an industry expected to produce 100,000 gallons a day.
Developers currently pay a $35 permit fee that covers administrative costs. “We definitely need more money in the sewer fund,” business administrator Dennis Reichard said. City Council would have to approve the fee.
Suspects arrested
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – Three Reading homicide suspects were arrested in Allentown, two of them after a 61/2-hour standoff Tuesday at a center city apartment building.
The standoff ended peacefully when Christopher Nguyen, 28, and his cousin, Andrew Gonzalez, 21, emerged at 8:30 p.m. from an apartment where police believed they had been staying for a few days.
A third suspect, Dontrell Gonzalez, 22, Andrew Gonzalez’ brother, had been arrested about 2 p.m. by members of a Reading fugitive task force who traced the suspects to Allentown. Police said he was unarmed but was carrying about $300 worth of cocaine.
The three were sought in the June 5 killing of Huey Pigford, 23, who was shot near his home after he urged neighborhood partygoers to clean up glass from a broken beer bottle.
Police said the three were being returned to Reading. In addition to homicide, they were charged with aggravated assault, reckless endangerment, firearms not to be carried without a license, possessing instruments of crime and conspiracy, police said.