Another defendant dismissed from unlawful homicide lawsuit
The owners of a personal care home sued by a mentally disabled man who claims he was wrongly arrested for homicide are no longer named as defendants in the suit.
U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney dismissed James McVey, the co-owner of McVey’s Personal Care Home, from the lawsuit filed by attorney Joel Sansone for Craig A. Geness. Jean McVey was removed as a defendant when Sansone filed an amended complaint.
Geness was accused of pushing Ronald Fiffik down five stairs in October 2006, killing him.
Geness was charged with homicide and was lodged in prison for over four years and on an ankle monitor for four more years at a long-term structured residence until the charges were dropped in 2015.
The McVeys were named as defendants in the suit along with the City of Uniontown, Fayette County and Uniontown Police Chief Jason Cox.
Sansone alleged the McVeys contacted police and told them that Geness, who has an IQ in the 50s, was suspected of pushing Fiffik to avoid any potential liability.
At the time, Cox, then a detective with the police department, interviewed James McVey, who informed Cox that he was standing in the kitchen when he heard Geness yell “shut up,” enter the house and go to his bedroom. James McVey told Cox he walked outside and saw Fiffik on the ground.
James McVey had Geness involuntarily committed to Highlands Hospital’s psychiatric ward, which was where Cox interviewed Geness weeks after the fall. The complaint alleged Cox coerced Geness into making a false admission in pushing Fiffik.
In November, the City of Uniontown and Fayette County were dismissed as defendants in the lawsuit, leaving Cox as the only defendant named in an amended complaint.