Apr 4, 2017 By Pat Cloonan pcloonan@heraldstandard.Com 3 min read

Pending further action on a complaint filed by the Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board, Monongahela-area Magisterial District Judge Mark A. Wilson’s criminal cases have been moved to two other nearby district courts.

“It is in the best interest of judicial administration to temporarily remove Magisterial District Judge Wilson from presiding over any criminal matters pending disposition of said complaint,” Washington County Common Pleas President Judge Katherine B. Emery wrote in an order dated Thursday, when the complaint was filed.

The board accused Wilson of violating the state’s rules governing standards of conduct over a period of more than five years, both before and after new rules were instituted on Nov. 30, 2014.

“Judge Wilson is not handling criminal cases, but is otherwise still conducting business,” Christopher Carusone, the Harrisburg attorney defending the Mon City-based jurist, said in a brief statement Monday.

“Judge Wilson is still hearing some cases, primarily civil, landlord-tenant and traffic citations,” Washington County District Court Administrator Patrick R. Grimm said Monday.

Criminal cases coming out of the city of Monongahela and the borough of New Eagle were moved 12 miles to the court of Magisterial District Judge James Ellis in McMurray, while those coming out of Carroll Township and the borough of Donora were moved 6 miles to the chambers of Magisterial District Judge Larry W. Hopkins in Charleroi.

“A criminal matter shall include criminal cases, arrest and/or search warrants, non-traffic citations and summary criminal cases,” Emery wrote.

The Pennsylvania Judicial Conduct Board is an independent state organization created by a constitutional amendment in 1993. It is responsible for reviewing, investigating and, where merited, prosecuting complaints of judicial misconduct.

The board normally is composed of 12 Pennsylvania citizens, six appointed by the state Supreme Court and the other half appointed by the governor, including three judges, three lawyers and six non-lawyers.

Attorney Robert G. Del Greco Jr. is one of four gubernatorial appointees now serving on the board, along with six appointed by the state’s highest appeals court. He said Wilson has 30 days to answer the complaint with the filing of a motion or an answer that admits or denies the allegations contained in the complaint.

If the motion was dismissed in all or in part, Wilson then would have an additional 20 days to file an answer to that dismissal.

“Failure to file an answer shall be deemed a denial of all factual allegations in the complaint,” according to the document issued by the judicial conduct board last week.

In that document, much of the board’s attention was focused on Wilson’s alleged habit of setting bonds and bail in various cases at $5,000, including a 2011 case involving Monongahela Mayor Robert L. Kepics, as well as welfare fraud, retail theft, theft by deception and bad checks cases beginning in 2013.

The board alleged that Wilson did not use proper “release criteria” by ordering that same $5,000 figure.

Last Thursday, Carusone described his client as “a no-nonsense judge who takes allegations of theft from the elderly and welfare fraud … very seriously,” who “fairly handled thousands of difficult criminal cases in Washington County without a complaint from the Judicial Conduct Board.”

He denied that his client violated the state constitution or the rules governing the conduct of magisterial district judges and said Wilson “maintains his innocence.”

Conferences dealing with the complaint could be scheduled in Harrisburg or in Southwestern Pennsylvania, depending on the availability of witnesses, Del Greco said. No date or location has been announced for any hearing in the Wilson case.