Rich Cholodofsky stories, Page 71

An assistant public defender in Westmoreland County was suspended with pay following his arrest this month in connection with allegations he assaulted a police officer. According to records obtained Monday, all three county commissioners signed off on the indefinite suspension of David Mulock, 36, of Murrysville. Mulock was charged Sept....

Two children in the shelter program at Westmoreland County’s juvenile detention center tested positive for the coronavirus. Nicole Kamer, director of the Regional Youth Services Center in Hempfield, said Monday that two teens were in quarantine. Officials suspected they came into contact with the virus while attending school outside of...

A mistrial was declared Friday in the cases against an Allegheny Township man accused of rape and sexual assaults by five women and a teen. Jurors deliberated nearly 14 hours over two days and reported they were at an impasse and unable to reach verdicts on all 24 counts in...

A Westmoreland County jury will continue deliberations Friday morning in the rape and sexual assault trial of an Allegheny Township man. Jurors in the cases against Eric Alan Wright, 49, deliberated more than eight hours Thursday before they were sent home for the night by Westmoreland County Common Pleas Judge...

A Rostraver chiropractor was convicted Thursday of two misdemeanor offenses in connection with the shooting of a dog two years ago in Monessen. A Westmoreland County jury deliberated nearly 11 hours over two days before reaching a mixed verdict that found James Scirotto, 48, guilty of animal cruelty and reckless...

A Westmoreland County jury was sent home Wednesday night without reaching a verdict in the animal cruelty case filed against a Rostraver chiropractor charged with shooting a dog in Monessen two years ago. During the three-day trial, prosecutors said James Scirotto, 48, recklessly fired as many as seven shots from...

Two more women told a Westmoreland County jury on Wednesday they were raped by an Allegheny Township man. Their testimony came during the third day in the trial of Eric Wright, 49, who prosecutors claim sexually assaulted and raped three juveniles and three adult women, dating back to the early...

Carley Layhue told a Westmoreland County jury she still doesn’t understand why her dog was shot after he escaped the backyard of her Monessen home two years ago. “He is the best dog. I couldn’t ask for a better dog for my children,” Layhue testified Tuesday during the second day...

A pediatrician testified Tuesday that no signs of physical abuse were discovered during an examination of a pre-teen girl who claimed she was raped multiple times by an Allegheny Township man in 2019. Dr. Jennifer Wolford, a child abuse specialist at UPMC Children’s Hospital in Pittsburgh, told jurors that lack...

The lawyer for a Rostraver chiropractor charged with animal cruelty and related offenses told a Westmoreland County jury on Monday that his client shot a barking mixed-breed dog to protect his family. Defense attorney Christopher Blackwell contended a neighbor’s canine snarled, barked and was set to attack children and adults...

An Allegheny Township man charged with the sexual assaults of three children and three adults over two decades showed no emotion Monday as the first of his accusers struggled to testify about the alleged abuses she claims she suffered in 2019. The now 14-year-old girl from New Kensington, who prosecutors...

Controversial statements that criticized a mask mandate at Westmoreland County Community College could result in the ouster of a member of the school’s board of trustees. A majority of trustees met behind closed doors this month to discuss potential censure of Doug Weimer, who publicly questioned the college’s mask policy...

Municipal Authority of Westmoreland County board members on Friday approved a deal to sell raw, untreated water to a local energy company for a new gas well expected to be drilled next year in Upper Burrell. The deal will allow Olympus Energy of Canonsburg to purchase up to 2.2 million...

A Loyalhanna man was ordered to serve up to 23 months in jail after he pleaded guilty to two drug charges. Brian Miller, 52, was arrested in April after the state police raided his home and found chemicals and equipment that investigators said were precursors to manufacture methamphetamine. As part...

Tracey Boyle made it perfectly clear she no longer wanted anything to do with her former boyfriend after enduring months of fear and concern over the safety for herself and her children. “No one would logically sign up for you. Your behavior came to be of a child who didn’t...

A Salem man pleaded guilty to charges he blackmailed local teens to send naked pictures to him. Dylan James Krupitzer, 20, was charged last year after police said he contacted a 16-year-old girl in 2019 through a social media account and demanded she send him pornographic pictures of herself. Police...

Tracey Boyle made it perfectly clear she no longer wanted anything to do with her former boyfriend after enduring months of fear and concern over the safety for herself and her children. “No one would logically sign up for you. Your behavior came to be of a child who didn’t...

A Greensburg man was convicted of the rape of an unconscious woman and the indecent assault of another in a city apartment three years ago. Westmoreland County Judge Christopher Feliciani on Tuesday found Levi Evans, 24, guilty of four charges in connection with the Jan. 18, 2018, incident. Two women...

Bryaunt Williams came to bid. Williams, a contractor from Tarentum, was one of the more than 160 potential buyers who came to the Westmoreland County Courthouse on Monday to find a deal during the annual sale of tax delinquent properties. “I was doing remodeling work on a home last year,...

Westmoreland Commissioner Doug Chew said he will pay for weekend drug tests of participants in the county’s drug court program until a permanent funding source is secured. In an email sent to county judges over the weekend, the first-term Republican from Hempfield pledged to help identify future funding sources for...

An Allegheny County man pleaded guilty Monday to aggravated assault, burglary and robbery charges and agreed to cooperate with a police investigation into the disappearance of a woman who has not been seen since two people were shot in Sutersville during a drug-related robbery three years ago. Dylan John Vasko,...

Westmoreland’s drug court is in dire need of cash after the county learned this week it lost a grant that pays for weekend testing of participants. The shortfall could be made up through a 2019 campaign pledge from Doug Chew to donate 60% of his commissioner’s salary to fund drug...

A New Kensington man was ordered to serve at least five years in prison in connection with the sale of drugs used in a fatal overdose in 2017. Martez D. “Chico” Whitlow, 30, pleaded guilty Thursday to a charge of drug delivery resulting in death and an additional drug-related count...

The lawyer for a Greene County man who pleaded guilty to a brutal assault of a 2-year-old Derry boy in 2016 told a judge on Friday his client was the most “damaged” person he’s ever represented. Defense attorney Gary Gerson said Cory Andrew Kuntz, 28, was a victim of sexual...