Former prosecutor dismissed from suit filed against ex-police officer
Both sides of a federal lawsuit that claims a former Connellsville police officer fabricated and falsified evidence in a city man’s drug-related conviction has agreed to dismiss a former assistant district attorney from the suit.
U.S. District Judge Lisa Pupo Lenihan dismissed J.W. Eddy as a defendant in the suit filed by Anthony Keffer. The suit still names former officer Ryan Reese, former district attorneys Nancy Vernon and Jack Heneks Jr. and Fayette County.
Counsel for both sides agreed to the dismissal of Eddy, a former assistant district attorney for Fayette County, with prejudice, meaning similar claims cannot be filed against him again.
Reese, a former police officer for Connellsville, arrested Keefer and accused him of selling 10 Oxycontin pills to a confidential informant in 2009. A jury found Keffer guilty in 2010, and he was sentenced to serve 27 to 54 months in prison, but a judge found on appeal that Keffer’s constitutional rights were violated during the trial and granted him a new one.
During the 2014 retrial, it was learned that the pills in evidence were destroyed by the district attorney’s office after initial appeals were denied. Jurors at the time could not reach a verdict, and a mistrial was declared.
Keffer claimed that Reese used fabricated and falsified evidence to arrest him and prosecute him.
Connellsville, the defunct Fayette County Drug Task Force, former assistant district attorney Mark Brooks, the Fayette County Prison Board, the prison and former prison warden Brian Miller have all been previously dismissed from the 2017 lawsuit.