Free Republic

WILKES-BARRE — With the 50th anniversary of her death coming up this week, relatives of Mary Jo Kopechne are making public a letter the Luzerne County native’s parents received from boxer Muhammad Ali shortly after her passing. In it, Ali urges the family to sue Sen. Ted Kennedy, who was driving the car that plunged off a bridge into a pond on the night of July 18, 1969, from which Kennedy escaped and Kopechne’s lifeless body was recovered the next morning. She was 28. The letter has been released to the Times Leader by William Nelson and his mother, Georgetta...

Foster Township gun collector Thomas F. Braddock Jr. wants to buy a 9 mm machine gun from a dealer in Georgia as an investment. He wanted to proceed with the deal by getting the signature of Luzerne County interim sheriff Jack Robshaw. But Robshaw didn't even consider signing the federal government form to authorize the purchase. "He just flat out refused," said Braddock, a retired Army National Guard major and former employee with the Federal Bureau of Prisons. "I have had a security clearance for 25 years. I am certainly not a criminal." Robshaw is concerned about civilians, who are...

Lights out during the Super Bowl. President Obama fought for 4 years to have the power grid updated. The GOP resisted him for 4 years. This is America on GOP obstruction. Having the power reliability of a banana republic. When will you wake up and realize the GOP should never be allowed anywhere near the levers of power? When the lights give out during your open-heart surgery? This is serious and yes, it is political as it is about responsible governance.

BAY MINETTE, Alabama – The family of a Daphne woman who received a lethal dose of medicine due to an error made by workers in India hired to save money on the preparation of medical records has won a $140 million judgment. The verdict, handed down this week in Baldwin County Circuit Court, holds Thomas Hospital and three other firms responsible for the 2008 death of Sharron Juno. It may be the richest civil verdict in the history of Baldwin County, renowned for its conservative juries. George “Skip” Finkbohner, an attorney who represented Juno’s son, attributed the large jury award...

I took this screen shot around 5pm Eastern Time, and there were 3,038 likes, 1181 likes, but only 462 views. That would mean that each viewer would like/dislke the video 9 times. (not to mention the very low number of views, given that the link has been on Drudge all afternoon) Do ya think YouTube/Google is playing with the number counter? (rhetorical question)

Former Lackawanna County commissioners Robert C. Cordaro and A.J. Munchak were sentenced this afternoon to prison for accepting bribes and kickbacks while running the county. Mr. Cordaro will serve 11 years in prison while Mr. Munchak will serve seven. Mr. Munchak must report to U.S. Marshals by 2 p.m. on April 3 to begin serving his sentence. The sentencing drew more than 120 people, including former colleagues, family, friends - and others just interested in the proceeding's outcome. Senior U.S. District Judge A. Richard Caputo has ruled that the sentencing guidelines for Mr. Cordaro is 188 to 235 months. Earlier,...

Health care provider announces that tobacco users will not get jobs. Smokers need not apply. That’s the message Geisinger Health System is sending to future job applicants. Starting Feb. 1, Geisinger will no longer hire applicants who use tobacco products, including cigarettes, cigars and chewing or smokeless tobacco, the health system announced on Wednesday. “Geisinger is joining dozens of hospitals and medical organizations across the country that are encouraging healthier living, decreasing absenteeism and reducing health care costs by adopting strict policies that make smoking a reason to turn away job applicants,” Richard Merkle, chief human resources officer, said in...

UPDATE: With the Susquehanna River now projected to crest before midnight Thursday at 40.7 feet, Luzerne County officials accelerated their deadline for a mandatory evacuation order. Residents in a wide swath of the county, from Exeter Township to Shickshinny, must leave by 4 p.m., four hours earlier than the initial evacuation order, county officials said. “We want people to heed our order and leave,” Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said at a 9:45 a.m. briefing at the county’s emergency management headquarters. “It’s significant. We want them to leave.” The evacuation order, covering a region devastated by flooding following Tropical Storm Agnes...

It's official: He's broke. A federal judge Tuesday declared former Luzerne County Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. a legal pauper, allowing him to proceed with an appeal of his corruption conviction without having to pay filing fees and other court costs. The ruling, from U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik, came a day after Ciavarella filed a handwritten financial disclosure form listing his last day of employment as Aug. 8 - just days before his sentencing - and his estimated income as $2,500 per month. Kosik sentenced Ciavarella on Aug. 11 to 28 years in prison after his conviction in...

A Butler Township man claiming to a have a bomb demanded money from a bank teller in Sugarloaf Township on Monday, only to return it minutes later after a scolding from his girlfriend, police said. Otto C. McNab Jr., 36, of 73 E. Foothills Drive, Drums, was arraigned by Magisterial District Judge Ronald Swank in Mountain Top on Monday evening, hours after demanding money from a bank teller at Susquehanna Bank and telling the employee he had a bomb and was willing to detonate it. "Times are tough," McNab told reporters as he was escorted by police into Swank's office...

Lackawanna County Judge Terrence R. Nealon admitted Wednesday to committing "a lapse of ethical judgment" seven years ago by privately advising local Democrats on how to oppose a county voting plan in a case over which he was asked to rule. Judge Nealon, a lifelong Democrat, admitted his lapse after being shown a copy of an email he sent to prominent Democrats on how to oppose the plan. The email was obtained from a confidential source by The Times-Tribune, and the judge confirmed he wrote it. Read Judge Terrence R. Nealon's email HERE (.pdf) Judge Nealon had been a contender...

SCRANTON - At first, it was a seemingly chastened Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. who stood at a podium Thursday to address the court. The former Luzerne County judge apologized to his family, to the county bench and bar, to the juvenile probation officers who worked in his courtroom. Reading from a prepared statement, he asked the people of Luzerne County to forgive him for "violating the trust they placed in me" and told the juvenile offenders who appeared in his court that he had shown himself to be a "hypocrite by not practicing what I preached." Then Ciavarella's statement took...

A defiant Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. was sentenced to 28 years in prison and ordered to pay $965,000 in restitution this morning after reading a statement to the court in which he denied trading "kids for cash." "Those three words made me the personification of evil. They made me the devil. They made me the anti-Christ. They made me toxic," Ciavarella told U.S. District Judge Edwin M. Kosik. Ciavarella, 61, was taken into federal custody following the sentencing. Ciavarella, while admitting to tax charges and fraud for taking nearly $1 million from the builder of a for-profit detention center, forcefully...

A Lakeland High School girls soccer coach is accused of repeatedly exposing his genitalia and fondling himself in front of employees at a Dickson City fast food restaurant, borough police said. Joseph Kovaleski, 61, of Scott Twp., was charged Sunday with two counts of indecent exposure, one count of open lewdness and three counts of disorderly conduct. According to an affidavit of probable cause filed by borough police Officer Scott Benzeleski, Mr. Kovaleski, 904 Justus Blvd., exposed himself at the Burger King on Business Route 6. An employee told police the behavior had been going on for several years. In...

A six-year illegal immigrant released following a traffic stop in Beaver Meadows and four-hour processing was not detained and deported because he was not "a priority case," an official from Immigration and Customs Enforcement said Thursday. The illegal immigrant's release has drawn the ire of Hazleton area lawmakers. "Obviously I'm very concerned about the situation in Beaver Meadows, and I want to know why this admitted illegal alien was released from custody," U.S. Rep. Lou Barletta, R-11, Hazleton, said Thursday. "I'm insulted and aggravated by the situation," said state Rep. Tarah Toohil, R-116, Butler Township. Beaver Meadows police Chief Michael...

After crashing her car Sunday, police said a Scranton woman suspected of burglarizing the Dunmore Inn was found to have a sizeable stash of drugs and money hidden in an unlikely location. According to a criminal complaint: Dunmore police Officer Anthony Cali asked Scranton police Officer Nancy Baumann to detain Karin Mackaliunas, 27, 1609 Mulberry St., at the scene of a crash at the North Seventh Avenue off-ramp Sunday evening. After her car was towed, Ms. Mackaliunas was ready to leave the scene of the crash when Officer Cali contacted Officer Baumann and asked for Ms. Mackaliunas to be detained...

For 55 years, George H. Keil barely breathed a word about the scars he bore on both legs - and a bullet still in one - and the actions in World War II that earned him medals including the Distinguished Service Cross, a Bronze Star and a Purple Heart. The Distinguished Service Cross is one step below a Medal of Honor. U.S. Army Staff Sgt. Keil, 94, of the Hudson section of Plains Township, died Saturday at Wilkes-Barre General Hospital. "He was a true hero," said Gerry O'Donnell, friend and president and CEO of MotorWorld Automotive Group. Newspaper clippings from...

WILKES-BARRE - Two Luzerne County deputy sheriffs filed requests for protection-from-abuse orders against each other Friday, and both women allege murder threats and gun-pointing incidents. Mary Jean Farrell, 50, and Jennifer M. Roberts, 33, were living together on Arthur Circle in Fairview Township with Farrell's children, 13 and 11, and broke up as a couple when Roberts became involved with another woman, the court filings say. When Farrell asked Roberts to move out Feb. 9, Roberts pointed a gun at Farrell, Farrell alleges. "Don't you dare. I have kids," Farrell alleges she told Roberts. "Then she pointed it in her...

Sandy Fonzo, the aggrieved and grieving mother who confronted Mark A. Ciavarella Jr. outside a federal courthouse last week after his conviction in the kids-for-cash case, blames her son's suicide on the former Luzerne County Juvenile Court judge, who jailed her son at 17. Her son's father, Edward R. Kenzakoski Jr., at least in part, blames himself. "I basically framed him with my buddies," Kenzakoski said Tuesday. Kenzakoski, a 44-year-old Bear Creek Township man employed in construction, said he planted drug paraphernalia in his son's truck about seven years ago, leading to his initial appearance in juvenile court. Fonzo alleges...

The mother of man who as a juvenile was incarcerated by fomer judge Mark Ciavarella angrily confronted him outside the courthouse, screaming at him that he was responsible for her son's suicide nine months ago. Sandy Fonzo of Wilkes-Barre was pushed away from Ciavarella by security after she jabbed at him. She had raced to the courthouse from her job in Kingston after hearing a verdict came in so that she could see him taken away in handcuffs. She was incensed that he was allowed to remain free pending sentencing. Fonzo's son, Edward Kenzakoski, had been jailed by Ciavarella when...