A Westmoreland County judge rejected the appeal of a former Pennsylvania State Police officer convicted of falsifying public records as he attempted to repurchase two service revolvers.

Common Pleas Judge Tim Krieger said evidence presented against Chad D. Corbett during a jury trial last February was sufficient to support guilty verdicts on charges he made false statements on official documents while attempting to purchase the guns in March 2018 at the Army-Navy store in Latrobe.

Corbett, 41, of New Derry served 11 years with the state police before retiring with a disability in 2017. Prosecutors said in his application to buy the guns, Corbett failed to disclose pending felony charges related to allegations he physically and sexually assaulted a woman in September 2017. Those counts were eventually dismissed in 2018, more than two weeks after the alleged falsification incident.

As part of a deal in that case, Corbett pleaded guilty to summary harassment and paid a $300 fine.

Jurors convicted Corbett of one felony and misdemeanor count during his two-day trial, and Krieger in October sentenced him to three years on probation.

In the appeal, defense attorney Fran Murrman contended Corbett’s conviction was based in part on misleading and inflammatory statements made by the prosecutor during the trial’s closing arguments.

According to court records, Assistant District Attorney Mike Pacek referred to Corbett as a “bad cop,” a “smart aleck” and attempted to prejudice the jury by linking him to serious sex charges that were alleged but for which he was never convicted.

Krieger rejected claims of prosecutorial misconduct based on a technicality, saying Murrman never objected to the prosecutor’s comments during the trial and therefore waived the ability to challenge them on appeal. The judge indicated in his opinion Pacek’s comments were not improper.

At trial, Corbett testified he did not intentionally lie on the official documents when he tried to reclaim his service revolvers and suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder from his military service and a police-involved shooting incident in which he killed an Indiana man while responding to a domestic violence call.

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