Allegheny County officials confirm 6 coronavirus cases at courthouse

Allegheny County court employees and prosecutors are among recent covid-19 cases in the county, officials confirmed Monday.

Six employees have been diagnosed with the disease, according to Allegheny County court administrator Christopher Connors.

Allegheny County District Attorney Stephen A. Zappala Jr.’s office also posted on social media that three of its staff members have contracted the virus.

Zappala spokesman Mike Manko said the post serves as a response to inquiries about covid-19 in DA’s office.

“We will review the safety measures that have been implemented to determine where improvements need to be made,” a Facebook post reads in part.

Two other attorneys who work in the Allegheny County Courthouse have also tested positive, Connors wrote in an email.

It wasn’t immediately clear if the two attorneys Connors mentioned are prosecutors in the DA’s office.

District Judge Anthony DeLuca’s Penn Hills office is also closed for two weeks starting Monday because of a positive case in that court office.

• Two of the people who tested positive work in the courthouse. They tested positive on June 25 and July 2.
• One works in the City-County Building and tested positive July 4.
• One works in pretrial services and tested positive June 30.
• One works in the family division and tested positive June 30. This employee was working from home.
• One worked at Judge DeLuca’s office and tested positive July 5.

Confirmation of the cases comes after several Pittsburgh criminal defense attorneys said they are fearful of the possible spread of covid-19 at the courthouse and are concerned about a perceived lack of communication among court officials, prosecutors and attorneys who work in the courthouse about the presence of the coronavirus there.

“The public deserves to know,” said Patrick Nightingale, a defense attorney based Downtown. “The courthouse is where the public comes into contact with the judicial system.”

Nightingale also heard about the case of the prosecutors, and another involving a court reporter who also tested positive, but nothing official has been communicated to attorneys who come and go at the courthouse, he said.

“No one is telling the criminal defense bar what’s going on,” Nightingale said.

Another Pittsburgh defense attorney, Marc Daffner, agreed.

“I don’t know of anybody that’s received anything official,” Daffner said. “All we’re hearing are essentially rumors.”

Court officials are working on a plan to communicate positive cases to attorneys while maintaining confidentiality of the person who tested positive, Connors said.

The court system goes beyond procedures recommended by federal, state and county health officials, Connors said. It does its own contact tracing and notifies those who may have been exposed to someone who tested positive for covid-19, according to Connors.

In addition to the cases that were confirmed recently, a person tested positive in May while the courts were closed, Connors said.

The defense attorneys who work in the courthouse are concerned because the building is ripe for spread of the disease, both Nightingale and Daffner said.

“We all have multi-county practices. Are we unwittingly carrying this virus throughout the commonwealth?” Nightingale said. “We just want to be safe. We’ve got older lawyers at increased risk.”

Pittsburgh defense attorney Todd Hollis put it this way: “We are perfect carriers.”

“We meet a great number of people on a daily basis and we travel from county to county,” Hollis said.

He’s taking precautions, but those aren’t fail-safe, Hollis said.

“I’m terrified,” he said. “I’m terrified that contracting covid could be very detrimental to my health.”