Police: Springdale couple threaten, follow woman after she made wrong turn onto their block

Springdale police arrested a couple after a woman told them the couple chased and threatened her when she made a wrong turn onto their street while driving her sons to a Halloween event at the high school.

Cesare Biagio Palumbi, 30, was charged with four felony counts of aggravated assault and a felony count of making terroristic threats along with 21 other counts. Among those are stalking, possession of an instrument of crime, simple assault, reckless endangerment, harassment, disorderly conduct, reckless driving and speeding.

Palumbi was released from the Allegheny County Jail after a Pittsburgh bail agency posted a $25,000 bond on his behalf, according to court records.

Courtney Lynn Mager, 31, faces 16 charges, among them simple assault, reckless endangerment, harassment, disorderly conduct and multiple traffic violations. Mager was released from custody on a nonmonetary bond, court records show.

The couple live in the 600 block of Rosslyn Avenue. They are scheduled to appear before District Judge David Sosovicka on Nov. 21 for preliminary hearings on the charges.

Police wrote in a criminal complaint charging the couple that, shortly before 1:30 p.m. Oct. 30, they responded to the Springdale Veterans of Foreign Wars in the 800 block of Lincoln Avenue for a report of a road rage incident.

The woman told police that she was driving her 11- and 15-year-old sons to Springdale High School for a trunk-or-treat event and made a wrong turn off Colfax Street onto Rosslyn Avenue, the complaint said.

As she turned around to go back, Mager yelled, “This isn’t a turn around,” the complaint said, and Palumbi told her she had “five (expletive) seconds” to turn around and go back.

The woman said Mager began following in a gray SUV as she drove off so she continued past the high school to try to get away, but the vehicle was “right on her bumper,” according to the complaint.

She said she drove several blocks before Palumbi drove up from the opposite direction and tried to “cut her off, run her off the road and hit her head-on,” the complaint said.

The woman said she drove her vehicle down a one-way street to try to get away from Palumbi, but he was able to pass her and then cut her off when she got to the VFW parking lot, police said.

The woman told police Mager arrived and tried to use the SUV to “box” her in as Palumbi got out of the car holding what appeared to be a metal pipe and ran toward her vehicle, according to the complaint.

The woman told police she was able to maneuver her car around the couples’ vehicles and call 911 as she drove off, the complaint said.

Several people told police they witnessed parts of the incident, and video surveillance obtained from police shows Palumbi running toward the woman’s vehicle holding “a large object” in his left hand just before she was able to drive away, the complaint said.

The woman and her children were “terrorized and traumatized by the incident,” police said.