State briefs
Man sentenced ERIE, Pa. (AP) – A man was sentenced to 161/2 to 33 years and four months in prison for fatally shooting another man during an argument outside a bar.
Matthew Perez-Jefferson, 20, of Erie, pleaded guilty in April to third-degree murder for shooting Paul Martinson, 21, outside the Antigua Blue Bar in Erie on Nov. 3.
“There is not a day goes by that you and your family don’t cross my mind,” Perez-Jefferson said Tuesday to Martinson’s mother, Rose Royer. “I offer my deepest remorse and apologies. I am so sorry. I don’t know what happened.”
His lawyer, James Pitonyak, said his client is one of the most guilt-ridden defendants he has seen. Perez-Jefferson was using cocaine, Ecstasy and alcohol before the shooting, he said.
Erie Judge William Cunningham ran the sentence consecutive to a three- to six-year prison sentence for an April drug conviction.
Suspect convicted
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A federal jury convicted a man of participating in a multimillion dollar construction kickback scheme for work done at an energy company headquarters and two hospitals.
Brian Ramsey, 44, of Murrysville, was convicted Tuesday of five counts of mail fraud, two counts of filing false tax returns and one count each of conspiracy and racketeering. He was acquitted of three other counts of mail fraud.
Ramsey, who oversaw construction work for Allegheny Energy, which is the parent of Allegheny Power, took kickbacks from three contractors and approved payment of false bills submitted from 1995 to 2000, prosecutors said.
Ramsey was one of 14 people arrested in a scheme involving nearly $6 million in overbilling at Mercy Hospital, University of Pittsburgh Medical Center and Allegheny Power.
Twelve others have pleaded guilty and the final defendant goes on trial in July.
Judge issues ruling
PITTSBURGH (AP) – A report critical of Westmoreland County’s Children’s Bureau can be used in a civil suit over the starvation death of a four-year-old child, a judge ruled.
Kristen Tatar’s 111/2-pound body was found stuffed in a picnic cooler set for trash pickup behind her Armstrong County house in August 2003, about a month after she died.
Her parents, James Tatar and Janet Crawford, are serving life sentences for first-degree murder. Kristen’s relatives sued Westmoreland and Armstrong counties and her parents.
The state Department of Welfare report said among its dozen findings that Westmoreland caseworkers failed to monitor whether Kristen was getting adequate medical attention before supervision transferred to Armstrong County.
Westmoreland lawyers said the report should be kept private because it was prepared as an internal tool to assess the agency’s practices.
U.S. District Judge Gary Lancaster ruled Tuesday that for now, the report can be used in pretrial hearings. He deferred ruling whether it can be used at trial.
Guilty plea entered
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – A former substitute teacher accused of agreeing to hire an undercover detective he thought was a hit man to kill his wife for $5,000 pleaded guilty Tuesday to solicitation to commit murder.
Todd Gregory Mattson, 35, of Lower Allen Township, had no plea agreement with the district attorney and could be sent to state prison for up to 20 years at his sentencing, expected in August.
Investigators said Mattson made the arrangement to kill his wife in a motel-room meeting with Detective Lt. Kurt Voggenreiter, who posed as a hit man, telling him what car she drove and when and where she worked. Mattson was arrested when he shook hands on the deal and did not give any statements to authorities. Investigators have not said what led him to try to have his wife killed.
“There’s never been a question in Todd’s mind that this would be the way that it would be resolved,” defense attorney George Matangos said of the plea. “He doesn’t want to cause his wife or his daughter any more tension.”
Mattson and his wife, Heather, who watched his court appearance, have a 6-year-old daughter. Heather Mattson filed for divorce after her husband’s arrest and secured a protection from abuse order against him in January.
Shoes shipped
CARLISLE, Pa. (AP) – Army Col. Michael Chesney noticed a problem as he tossed new soccer balls to some young orphans in Afghanistan.
“I said something is missing here. They don’t have shoes,” Chesney said. This was true of many of the children he encountered on a yearlong deployment to Afghanistan. “Let’s get them shoes first and then we’ll play soccer.”
When Chesney returned to the Army War College in Carlisle in December, he contacted St. Patrick School, where his two daughters attend kindergarten and fourth grade, suggested a shoe donation drive, and got a huge response.
“There was almost a sense of competition going on between the classrooms on how many shoes they could collect,” said Ricman J. Fly, the school principal.
The kindergarten through eighth-grade students rounded up more than 900 pairs of new and lightly used shoes and sent 26 large shipping boxes, labeled “Shoes with a loving heart,” to orphanages Chesney had visited. Chesney has received photographs in return of the donated shoes being handed to children who he hopes are now kicking soccer balls around.
Beetles battled
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Seeking to avoid an invasion of beetles that have wreaked havoc in Michigan, Ohio, Indiana and Ontario forests, natural resources officials are asking out-of-state campers who visit Pennsylvania campgrounds to leave their firewood at home.
“We want campers to obtain firewood locally and not transport it into our state parks and forest lands,” Department of Conservation and Natural Resources Secretary Michael DiBerardinis said.
Officials fear wood brought in from other state could be harboring the small metallic green bug called the emerald ash borer, which feeds on tissues under the bark of ash trees. In Michigan, where the Asian import was first discovered in 2002, the bugs have destroyed more than 10 million trees.
Other states have already cracked down on campers hauling wood into parks. Indiana officials seize and burn firewood from infected areas, and Wisconsin and South Dakota ban out-of-state firewood outright.
For now, Pennsylvania officials are asking people not to bring firewood into the state, and those who do so are asked to burn it quickly.
Fatalities hold steady
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Memorial Day weekend traffic accidents caused 361 injuries and 11 deaths in Pennsylvania, the same number of fatalities as last year, state police said.
State police investigated 807 crashes during the holiday weekend, and 86 of them, including one of the fatal accidents, were alcohol related, State Police Commissioner Jeffrey B. Miller said.
Children rescued
LANCASTER, Pa. (AP) – Firefighter Terry Bracken rushed into a burning house without breathing apparatus, goggles or helmet to reach two unconscious children in a second-floor bedroom.
“The fire was doubling every 30 seconds, so I knew time was running out to save the kids,” the 50-year-old Lancaster Fire Department lieutenant said Tuesday.
Reaching the room where Devon Hen, 4, and Alvin Hen, 2, were trapped, he found their father, Simuon Hen, and a neighbor trying to use a garden hose to douse a burning mattress blocking the door. He sent them outside and climbed over the mattress.
“The children were limp,” Bracken said. “I scooped them up in my arms and headed out.”
Nurse Cathy Bernthiezel performed cardiopulmonary resuscitation on one boy. At a doctor’s office less than a block away, doctors gave one boy oxygen until an ambulance took the children to Lancaster General Hospital, where they were treated and were released Tuesday evening.
Bracken waited in an examination room with the other boy until the ambulance came. “I wish I had a camera because it was like a scene from a movie, to see this little child with a huge, hulking fireman standing over him,” Dr. Howard Gerstein said. “He was not leaving that child.”
No charges planned
ALLENTOWN, Pa. (AP) – A prosecutor said he will not file charges against a former city police lieutenant who shot another officer with a plastic BB at police headquarters.
Thomas R. Houck struck officer Jason M. Krasley with a shot from the BB gun, which Krasley had confiscated from a juvenile earlier in the day, on May 13 near the complaint desk where officers gather between shifts.
“It is a toy,” Lehigh County District Attorney James Martin said Tuesday. “It was clearly a stupid act and one which violates common sense as applied to weapons safety. However, it was not a criminal act.”
Houck pointed the BB gun toward Krasley and pulled the trigger, firing a BB that gave Krasley a “mosquito bite-like welt,” Martin said. Krasley refused medical care and kept working his shift.
Houck retired May 19 after a 25-year career with city police. Martin said Houck’s retirement did not influence his decision on whether to charge him. Martin and Police Chief Roger MacLean said they did not ask or force Houck to retire. Houck declined to comment to a reporter who came to his Allentown home.
Ex-coach sentenced
EASTON, Pa. (AP) – Former Nazareth Area High School freshman girls basketball coach Lauren Stewart was sentenced to four to 23 months in prison plus nine months of probation and fined $1,200 for sexually molesting two girls.
The tearful Stewart, 29, was handcuffed Tuesday and escorted to Northampton County Prison. Judge Anthony S. Beltrami commended her for seeking treatment after her arrest, but said, “This behavior really only stopped when you got caught.”
Stewart, of Tatamy, pleaded guilty on April 18 to two counts of corruption of a minor and one count of indecent assault. She apologized Tuesday to the victims, their families and her own family and friends. “What I did was wrong,” she said. “There is absolutely no excuse.”
Assistant District Attorney Patricia C. Broscius said Stewart began a relationship that involved sexual acts with a 14-year-old girl she was coaching. That relationship ended in April 2005 when the child’s parents became concerned about how much time she was spending with Stewart. Broscius said Stewart soon struck up a relationship with a 16-year-old girl which had not become as involved.