Appeals court rejects Thomas Stanko's bid to lower federal prison sentence

A federal prison sentence was upheld by appeals court judges who considered an appeal from a Unity man serving time in a gun case.

Three Third Circuit judges last month rejected an appeal from Thomas G. Stanko, 52, who was sentenced in July 2022 to seven years and three months.

The judges ruled that Stanko’s sentence was reasonable. They said the Pittsburgh district judge evaluated information regarding Stanko’s childhood appropriately in fashioning the prison term, which is to be followed by three years of supervised release.

“This careful balancing is exactly what district courts must do at sentencing,” the judges ruled.

Stanko pleaded guilty in November 2021 in the federal case to two counts of illegally having guns as a convicted felon. The federal charges stem from 17 guns state police said they found on a Unity property and a storage unit he rented while they were investigating the April 2018 disappearance of Cassandra Gross of Unity.

Prosecutors said authorities were led to the firearms through jailhouse phone calls Stanko made to his mother and a girlfriend during which Stanko used “coded language” about the weapons. State police found four guns at the White Fence Lane home where his mother lives and 13 more at a Greensburg storage unit.

He has been held in jail on unrelated cases since Gross’ disappearance, but was never arrested in connection with it until October.

Stanko is charged with homicide, abuse of a corpse, tampering with evidence and reckless burning. He has maintained his innocence.

Bail is denied in that case, and a pretrial conference last week was continued.

Gross, of Unity, was last seen April 7, 2018. Her Mitsubishi Outlander was found burned in a wooded area near Twin Lakes Park days later.

Troopers immediately zeroed in on Stanko, searching two Unity properties he owned at the time.

A judge in 2019 declared Gross legally dead. Her remains have not been found.