Monday, July 24, 2017

No sex crime, but still a sex offender in Pennsylvania

Posted: July 23, 2017



Shauquana Green
Shaquana Green and her toddler daughter disappeared during a weekly Saturday afternoon visit in 2012, an incident that Upper Darby police described in court documents as a custody dispute.
Fewer than three hours later, the girl was found unharmed near where she was last seen and returned to her legal guardian, who's her paternal grandmother, according to court records. Green was arrested for violating a court custody order that barred her from unsupervised contact with her child.
That event is how the 26-year-old Bethlehem woman, a single mother with no prior criminal record, ended up a Pennsylvania sex offender. It’s a life-crippling label that Green wouldn’t have if she lived in any other state.
But when the Pennsylvania Legislature expanded its sex offender law in 2011 in response to federal legislation, it added new crimes, including the one that Green pleaded guilty to in 2013 — interference with child custody. Under the amended law, which became effective in December 2012, conviction of that crime carries a 15-year requirement to register as a Megan's Law child sex offender. There is no exemption for parental custody interference with no sexual abuse. 
The result is that at least 34 Pennsylvanians, including one resident in each Bucks and Montgomery counties, whose “primary” offense is the same as Green’s, are on the state’s sex offender registry. This is without any evidence they've been accused of a sex crime, according to an extensive records search of 6,000 active sex offender profiles on the state’s Megan’s Law website, court documents, Sex Offender Assessment Board documents obtained under the Pennsylvania Right to Know Act and media accounts of cases.
After this news organization raised questions about its findings, the Montgomery County lawmaker who chairs the powerful Senate Judiciary Committee and the committee’s legal counsel vowed to draft legislation to fix what they called the law’s unanticipated “serious collateral consequences.”
Sen Stewart Greenleaf
Sen. Stewart Greenleaf, R-12, of Upper Moreland, expressed concern upon learning that people like Green were being listed as sex offenders. He insisted it was never the law's intention to place someone who has never committed a sex crime on the Megan's Law registry.
“That is certainly not an intended consequence,” the judiciary committee chair said. “This has to be fixed.”
At least one-quarter of the 34 Pennsylvanians were found to be noncustodial parents convicted of violating child custody orders. Others committed unrelated crimes, such as stealing a car in which a child was a passenger. Two people were convicted of interference with child custody in New Jersey, where it’s not an offense requiring sex offender registration. But since it's considered a violent sex offense in Pennsylvania, anyone who lives, works or attends school here must register.
A review of sex offender registration laws in all 50 states found only one other state — Louisiana — includes interference with child custody as a crime requiring sex offender registration. But that state provides a registration exemption if the defendant is the parent of the victim child. 
“It’s a disservice to the public,” said Jill Levenson, a social work professor at Barry University in Florida who studies sex offender registration laws. “When you have people on the registry who aren’t sexually dangerous, it dilutes the public’s ability to find out what they need to know to protect themselves.”
Worse, people with no known history of sexually deviant behavior experience wide-ranging consequences, including loss of personal freedom, loss of privacy, and social ostracization, according to experts in sex offender laws.

One woman's experience

Tier 1 sex offenders, like Green, must update personal information with Pennsylvania State Police annually and within three days of changing a job, a residence, a vehicle or a school, according to the law. They must give police a DNA sample and palm prints. They must notify state police when traveling to another state for longer than a week. International travel requires 21 days notification and a foreign country can refuse an offender entry. They cannot have unsupervised contact with children in school settings. And failure to follow the requirements is a third-degree felony.


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Shaquana Green, of Bethlehem, was convicted of interfering with child custody in Delaware County after she took her then 23-month-old daughter for three hours in 2012. She landed on Pennsylvania's sex offender registry for the next 15 years, though she has never been accused of or charged with a sex crime.
But the hardships go beyond those requirements, said Green, who now has a nearly 2-year-old son. Her daughter, now 7, remains in the custody of her paternal grandmother, who was made her legal guardian because of Green's admitted mental health problems.
Potential employers are wary of her sex offender status, she said. Landlords are reluctant to rent to her. Daycare center operators don’t want her son. A homeless shelter turned her away. And she said a transitional housing program rescinded her admission after two days because the program’s sponsor was uncomfortable after learning Green was a sex offender.  
“The toll it takes on your life, it’s not just registering, it’s everything. It’s the community, all my friends knowing about it, but not understanding. Just constantly having to explain it and be judged about it,” Green said recently. “My life is just consumed by this now. The more I try to talk about it, the more I try to get understanding about it, the more I try to research about it, I just wish I could wake up and it was a nightmare, it’s not true. But it’s reality.”

U.S. act's genesis

What happened in the Pennsylvania Legislature in 2011 started with Congress in 2006, when the Adam Walsh Child Protection and Safety Act became law. The act is named after a 6-year-old Florida boy, son of "America's Most Wanted" host John Walsh, who was kidnapped and murdered in 1981. The widely publicized case was a catalyst for the U.S. child safety reform movement.
The federal legislation urged states to create more unified sex offender registration requirements that encompassed more crimes, including non-sexual "offenses against children " — and to apply those expanded registration requirements retroactively. States that don't “substantially comply” with the law are penalized by cuts in federal funding for crime prevention programs.
Kidnapping and false imprisonment offenses against minors are specifically included in the Adam Walsh Act. Both exempt parents and guardians, but states also can enact more restrictive registration requirements, which is what happened in Pennsylvania.
The original state Senate version of the bill adopting the Adam Walsh Act included parental registration exemptions for interference with child custody, unlawful restraint and false imprisonment of a minor, Greenleaf said. But that bill underwent extensive changes in the House and only parental exemptions for unlawful restraint and false imprisonment made it into the amended bill, which received unanimous approval in the House and Senate.
Dauphin County Republican Rep. Ronald Marsico, chairman of the House Judiciary Committee, wrote and introduced the House amendments. Marsico’s chief of staff, Autumn Southard, said the amendments were based on the advice of legal counsel and follow the federal law’s guidelines. 
The attorney who provided that guidance, Gregg Warner, is no longer with the Senate Judiciary Committee and efforts to reach him for comment were unsuccessful. The state Senate library has no record of judiciary committee meetings held on the updated bill.
Patrick Crawley, the current counsel to the Senate Judiciary Committee, said one reason the exemption might have been removed was that it was seen as redundant with the Pennsylvania crimes code, which includes defenses for parents charged with interference with custody of children.

Theories on inclusion  

Specialists in sex offender laws suggested that lawmakers might have included the offense because it falls under the broader category of kidnapping by a related person. But none could suggest how including those offenders on a registry benefits public safety.
“Quite honestly, I have no idea why a state would include that,” said Eric Janus, a law professor at Mitchell Hamline School of Law in Minnesota, and a nationally recognized expert on sex offender registries. “Though it clearly has a relation to child protection, it has no obvious relation to sexual offenses.”
Wayne Logan, a professor at Florida State University Law School, theorized that child custody interference falls under kidnapping offenses, a common trigger for sex offender registration. “The rationale being that sex abuse often accompanies the crime,” he added.
Barry University’s Levenson called it “highly, highly unusual” for someone without a sex crime conviction to be on a Megan’s Law registry.
Sex offender registries that include non-sexual offenses confuse the public, added Catherine L. Carpenter, a professor at Southwestern Law School in Los Angeles, and a nationally recognized expert in sex offender laws.
“You get a disconnect between protecting the children because of the crime, and the remedy, which is to track them as sex offenders,” Carpenter said. “This is just, sadly, another example of this broad painting with a broad brush to capture people who shouldn’t be captured.”

Views on the law 

Former Montgomery County prosecutor, Rep. Todd Stephens, R-151, of Horsham, said including non-sex offenders on the Megan's Law registry benefits the public because it identifies those who commit offenses against children, which is what Congress intended when it adopted the Adam Walsh Act.


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State Rep. Todd Stephens, R-151
“I do think people who commit crimes against children are a unique subset of criminals, worthy of greater attention," Stephens added. "The federal government expanded (the law) to include more than just sex offenders, so I don’t believe it’s just a sex offender registry since the Adam Walsh Act.
But Greenleaf, who said he voted for the law in 2011 though he didn’t agree with all of it, expressed growing concern that sex offender laws have become far more encompassing than their original intended target: violent and habitual child sexual predators.
The veteran lawmaker said he would like to see the reinstatement of the original Senate exemption for parents convicted of interference with child custody. He cautioned, though, that changing the law would be a “hard push,” in part, because of politicians’ general aversion to scaling back laws involving sex offenders.
Other states have faced similar problems with registries.
Georgia now allows some people who were convicted of a non-sexual crime against a child (like kidnapping) to petition for release from the registry. No such options exist in Pennsylvania, but after 10 years, a Tier 1 offender with a "clean record" can petition to reduce the registration obligation by five years.


Aaron Marcus is an attorney with the Defenders Association of Philadelphia, an independent, nonprofit firm that represents indigent criminal defendants.
Philadelphia attorney Aaron Marcus agreed that state lawmakers appear reluctant to take action on the overreach of the sex offender law, calling it a "careless bill." He works with the Defenders Association of Philadelphia, an independent, nonprofit firm that represents poor criminal defendants.
“Very few legislators, at least in the last couple of years, wanted to touch this issue in any respect because anytime you remove an offense, you’re seen as soft on sex crimes, which is why these laws don’t get reined in,” he said.
And that's why Green said she has such a hard time convincing people that she didn't commit a sex crime — even though she's on the sex offender registry and even after she shows them paperwork that includes a letter from a child welfare caseworker confirming her crime wasn't sexual.
“There is a lot of ignorance to it because they don’t understand. They think of Megan’s Law — that is what you associate it with — some kind of sexual offense, some kind of sexual inappropriateness with children,” Green said. “I just pray the law does get changed and that they see the effect it is having on people. When you never did a sex offense. When you never did anything sexual to any children.”
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @JoCiavaglia

Some lawyers, prosecutors disagree on child interference convictions being Megan's Law offenses

Posted: July 23, 2017

Rita Jeffcoat in her Megan's Law registry photo
Philadelphia resident Rita Jeffcoat became a registered sex offender in Pennsylvania last year after pleading guilty to interfering with the custody of her daughter.
But if prosecutors had let the 49-year-old noncustodial parent plead guilty to a different crime for signing her daughter out of school without the consent of the girl’s legal guardian in 2015, Jeffcoat wouldn't find her photo and personal information listed with convicted child molesters, kiddie porn collectors and rapists on Pennsylvania’s Megan’s Law registry.
Pennsylvania prosecutors know what criminal offenses carry so-called Megan’s Law attachments, meaning that defendants convicted of the crimes are required to register as sex offenders for at least 15 years, local defense attorneys said.
Interfering with child custody was among the new crimes added to the Pennsylvania Megan's Law registration requirements that took effect in December 2012. The number of people convicted of that crime rose from eight to 17 between 2013 and 2014, according to the Pennsylvania Commission on Sentencing. The number dropped to 11 in 2015; preliminary data shows another 11 people convicted last year.
An investigation by this news organization found that at least 34 of 45 active registered sex offenders in Pennsylvania — including at least one each in Bucks and Montgomery counties — whose primary offense was interfering with child custody of children had no known criminal accusations of sex crimes, including Jeffcoat.
Philadelphia defense attorney William Ciancaglini represented Jeffcoat and spoke to this news organization for her. He confirmed there was no sexual component to the crime and Jeffcoat's daughter was returned unharmed to her legal guardian. Jeffcoat, who had no prior criminal record, was initially charged with kidnapping, false imprisonment and related offenses, according to court documents. The other charges were dropped after she pleaded guilty to interfering with child custody.
Ciancaglini said he wouldn't have agreed to the plea deal if he knew it would force Jeffcoat to register under Megan’s Law for 15 years.
“I don’t think anyone, including the judge, knew there was going to be a Megan’s Law attachment,” he said. “What is a surprise, is that the district attorney would want to have her as a registered sex offender. It’s horrible.”
In an email statement, the Philadelphia district attorney’s spokesman, Cameron Kline, cited state law as the reason it pursued the interference charge. "The Pennsylvania's Legislature determined that, in addition to sexual crimes, certain other crimes against children should also require that the offender register with the state police," Kline said.
The Pennsylvania District Attorneys Association doesn't track how often individuals with no sex crime accusations are required to register as sex offenders, according to its executive director, Richard Long. Prosecutors have discretion to determine what charges, if any, fit the facts and circumstances of a case, he added, but they shouldn't ignore the law so a defendant can avoid a particularly unpleasant outcome — like being on the Megan's Law registry.

In Bucks, Montgomery counties

Montgomery County didn't have data available on how often police charge a defendant with interference with child custody, according to First Deputy Clerk of Courts Michael Paston.
Holly  Dobrosky in Megan's Law registry picture
In Bucks County, 20 people have been charged with the offense since 2013, including three people this year, according to the clerk of courts office. And as of last week, only one current Bucks County resident is listed on the Megan's Law registry as an active sex offender whose primary offense is interfering with child custody.
Bucks County Assistant District Attorney William Murphy, said that resident — Holly Dobrosky, 49, of Middletown — could have avoided the registry before her March trial on interference with child custody, but she rejected a deal that would have let her plead guilty to three counts of disorderly conduct instead of interfering with child custody.
Dobrosky was charged for keeping her then-5-year-old daughter for 41 days last year in violation of a custody order with the girl’s father. The girl was found unharmed in Miami with friends of her mother, police said. Dobrosky, a suspended defense attorney, has filed a petition in Bucks County court challenging her sex offender status.
This news organization was unsuccessful in multiple attempts to reach Dobrosky for comment, including visits to her home. Her public defender, Bradley Bastedo, also didn't return repeated voicemail messages.
Asked about the charge against her, Murphy said it was appropriate for the crime — though it could have been pleaded down.
“It wasn’t kidnapping, but rose to a more serious level because of endangering the welfare (of her daughter),” he said. “This is exactly what she committed.”
And that is part of the unique challenge prosecutors face with these type of cases, said Michael Galantino, a Delaware County deputy district attorney and head of the DA's Special Victims Unit.
Galantino said that he doesn't see a public safety benefit to placing individuals with no sex crime history on a sex offender registry. But, sometimes, he said, a crime is so specific that it simply doesn't meet the definition of an offense that would avoid a Megan's Law attachment.
“I do understand how, logically, this question — Should this person be registered under Megan’s Law? — applies, but we don’t have authority as district attorney to change that,” Galatino added. “It’s difficult to ignore the facts of a case when they fit so squarely in the crime. We can’t avoid the most logical criminal charge because we don’t like the outcome.”

Do overdose immunity laws save lives or delay deaths? Police, lawyers, lawmakers disagree

Posted July 24, 2017



When he overdosed on heroin last year, the unconscious 31-year-old Middletown man was brought to a local hospital by a friend.
Falls Lt. Nelson Whitney
The hospital staff reversed the overdose and saved his life. Then, Bristol Township police arrested the man who overdosed for possessing five baggies of fentanyl, a powerful opioid often found in street heroin. 
Because the friend who took him to the hospital wasn't in possession of drugs, he didn't need to use a 2014 law that guarantees limited immunity to people who seek medical help for someone overdosing on opioids like oxycodone or opiates like heroin, according to court documents. But prosecutors in the case argued that since the friend didn't need immunity, the man who overdosed shouldn't get it, either.
A Bucks County judge disagreed last month and dismissed the misdemeanor drug possession and paraphernalia charges against the man who overdosed. 
In his June 8 opinion, Bucks County Judge Clyde Waite wrote that it is clear the Legislature intended the overdose immunity law to apply to both the "Good Samaritan" and the person who overdosed on controlled substances if they comply with the law's requirements, including cooperating with police. It was the second time in two years a Bucks County judge used the overdose immunity law to drop charges against someone who overdosed.
"We must also recognize the anomaly presented by a case of this nature where acknowledged criminal behavior is, at least, ostensibly met with the reward of immunity unless the legislature clearly intended that as the intended result of services of a higher purpose," Waite wrote. 
While the Bucks County District Attorney's Office says there are no plans to appeal the latest decision, prosecutors and some lawmakers are raising concern about the Legislature's original intentions and how the law is being applied. 
Pennsylvania is among at least 36 states and the District of Columbia with so-called Good Samaritan laws encouraging bystanders to seek medical assistance for someone overdosing on drugs, by removing any fear of arrest for the person who seeks help.
But law enforcement officials and some lawmakers are concerned about whether the immunity should cover the person who overdoses even if the bystander doesn’t need the immunity because he doesn't possess drugs or drug paraphernalia. The law doesn't address that issue, though one of its cosponsors said the immunity is intended to apply “across the board.”  
Bucks County prosecutors oppose the "across-the-board" interpretation as too broad. Police say it makes it harder to slow the flow of cheap and powerful heroin fueling the drug epidemic by giving immunity to the person who ODs as well as the Good Samaritan. State politicians question whether the law created an unintended treatment barrier for drug users at a moment when they might be most open to it. And there's little long-term data on the effectiveness of the laws since they are relatively new. 

Immunity laws' aim

Overdose immunity laws are part of a drug abuse prevention strategy known as "harm reduction,” which focuses on reducing the consequences of drug use, such as death, disease transmission, drug-exposed births, criminal activity and incarceration.
The movement is rooted in the public health philosophy that accepts addiction as a reality but doesn't condone drug abuse, according to a 2015 study in the Yale University Journal of Biological Medicine. Strategies include creating laws encouraging bystanders to act if they see an overdose; widespread distribution of naloxone, a drug that reverses opioid and opiate overdoses; and adopting prescription drug monitoring programs that track how opioid medications like oxycodone are dispensed.
Research shows that fear of being arrested often discourages drug users from seeking medical assistance for someone experiencing an overdose. Among the latest research is an Indiana study that found many of the 1,300 people surveyed had administered Narcan, the overdose antidote, to a person, but didn't call 911 for fear they'd be arrested themselves because they had drugs. 
Generally, immunity laws protect people from arrest or prosecution for minor drug offenses if they help someone who overdoses on drugs or alcohol. The laws typically require the bystander to remain with the overdosing person until assistance arrives and cooperate with police and emergency workers.
The laws don't provide blanket immunity for all drug-related crimes. In most states, police can arrest individuals for suppression of evidence of crimes unrelated to the overdose and drug offenses that they learn about independently of the overdose call. In Pennsylvania, police can charge someone with delivery of controlled substances or drug-delivery resulting in death, if they gave the person the drug that caused the overdose.

Confusion, objections 

In Pennsylvania, the law has sparked widespread confusion among law enforcement and the public.
“The information about the immunity act, I think, has been slow to spread,” Falls police Lt. Nelson Whitney said. “I think there has been a lot of misunderstandings among the public and law enforcement alike about the immunity statute."
Bensalem Director of Public Safety Fred Harran said he believes immunity laws interfere with the ability of law enforcement to identify major drug suppliers by removing an incentive for small dealers and drug users to cooperate with police in exchange for reduced criminal charges.
“People who abuse narcotics don’t tend to help you unless they get something out of it,” Harran said. “If you don’t get to the higher drug dealers, it’s possible for every one life that is saved (with the immunity law), two are lost.”
The Bucks County District Attorney’s Office believes county judges are improperly applying the law to people who overdose where there is no evidence the bystander who intervened is at risk for arrest, prosecutor Daniel Sweeney said.
Since the law took effect, Sweeney estimated between two to four drug cases each trial term — at least 32 cases a year — are dismissed against individuals who overdosed. The dismissals can be the basis of civil suits against police and prosecutors, he said. 
Last month, a northeastern Pennsylvania woman filed a federal lawsuit against the Wyoming County District Attorney’s Office and the Tunkhannock Township Police Department for arresting her last year on drug and paraphernalia possession charges after she overdosed on heroin. The woman’s mother brought her to the hospital and gave the drugs and paraphernalia to hospital staff, who called police. A county judge eventually dismissed the charges.
“While it’s a well-intentioned law, its goals are not going to be met,” Sweeney added. “The law needs to be rewritten to say protect the caller or the person who transports, but not necessarily the person who overdoses,” Sweeney said. “I know it sounds callous, but people don’t kick an opiate addiction on their own.”

Free pass?

There also appears to be confusion among state lawmakers over how the immunity law was to be applied.
Montgomery County Rep. Todd Stephens, R-151, of Horsham, and a former Montgomery County prosecutor, said he supported the bill because he interpreted it as providing immunity only to bystanders — if the bystander was at risk of arrest.
“It’s probably something we should take a closer look at,” Stephens added. “A criminal prosecution is one way to ensure that people are provided treatment options through the criminal justice system.”
Sen. Gene Yaw, R-Williamsport, one of the bill's cosponsors, recalled that lawmakers involved with the legislation believed the immunity would be applied “across the board to everybody,” but that it wasn’t something they considered deeply.
“I don’t think we ever really thought about it when the original bill was passed,” Yaw said. “We never thought this is one of those consequences that came about after the fact. We thought people being saved would be grateful, frankly.”
The one aspect of the law its cosponsors were clear about is that they wanted to remove any question that someone who sought medical attention for an overdosing person could be arrested for minor drug charges, Yaw said. “We didn’t want to make it a legal question, where someone runs through their mind, ‘Should I call my lawyer, before I call 911?’” he said.
But after hearing growing concerns from first responders, Yaw said the law needs to be amended to assure that individuals who overdose seek treatment. Earlier this year, he introduced a bill that would extend immunity to individuals who overdose only if they enter drug treatment within 30 days after the incident. Yaw’s bill is in the Senate Judiciary Committee.
“We can no longer give individuals suffering from an opioid or other drug-related overdose a free pass, only to have them overdose a second or subsequent time and risk dying,” Yaw wrote in the bill’s co-sponsorship memo. “It is vitally important that we get them into treatment as quickly as possible.”
However, demand for inpatient drug treatment beds in Pennsylvania far exceeds current capacity, and it’s hard to find an open detox bed anywhere in the state, especially on weekends, said Rep. Gene DiGirolamo, R-18, of Bensalem, chairman of the House Human Services Committee and a longtime advocate for expanded drug treatment.
DiGirolamo, who supported the original law, said he believed its purpose was to save lives immediately, but it may be time to rethink that approach.
“We need to get that person (who is overdosing) into treatment,” DiGirolamo added. “Maybe what we should be looking at is kind of that the person who overdoses only gets that limited amount of immunity if you agree to get a (drug) assessment. To me, that makes a whole lot more sense.”

Saturday, July 22, 2017

Commitment paperwork at center of Cosmo DiNardo's dismissed gun charge in Bensalem

Posted: July 19, 2017


Cosmo DiNardo led into Bucks County prison
The circumstances surrounding the dismissal of a felony gun charge against Cosmo DiNardo earlier this year remain unclear and have authorities pointing fingers following his arrest last week as a quadruple murder suspect at the end of one of the largest police investigations in recent county memory.
Bucks County Court Administrator Stephen Heckman, who oversees county district courts, said the charge was dismissed because paperwork submitted in the case lacked a necessary doctor’s signature confirming DiNardo was involuntarily committed under section 302 of the state's Mental Health Procedures Act. A psychiatric emergency is one of the few health problems that can result in someone being held against his or her will.
Bucks County District Attorney Matthew Weintraub insisted this week that the paperwork for the 302 commitment was properly prepared and signed, but he declined to release a copy of the paperwork prosecutors presented at DiNardo's preliminary hearing.
According to an affidavit of probable cause, DiNardo told Bensalem police about a past "involuntary commitment to a mental institution" when they found him in possession of a 20-gauge shotgun and ammunition in February.
Bensalem police, though, requested the 302 commitment records from the wrong places, not the county's mental and behavioral health agency, which maintains the completed and sealed documents, according to Bucks County Commissioner Diane Ellis-Marseglia, who investigated the matter. 
In an email to this news organization, Bensalem Director of Public Safety Fred Harran said his department doesn't often request mental health commitment records as part of a criminal case.
The probable cause affidavit provides no other details about the arrest of DiNardo, the 20-year-old son of two local business owners, including where it occurred in the township or how the officer found the Bensalem resident in possession of the weapon. He was arraigned before District Judge Maggie Snow, who released him on $25,000 unsecured bail with conditions that included he wasn't to possess firearms.
The affidavit described DiNardo as a “subject known to be suffering from mental illness" and having been involuntarily committed, which would make it illegal for him to own or use a firearm. 
The preliminary hearing on the gun possession charge was continued three times before it was held on May 30, and the charge was dismissed for reasons that are not entirely clear, according to a review of documents in the case filed in District Judge Michael Gallagher’s court in Bensalem. Gallagher declined comment and referred questions to Heckman. Available public records do not identify the county prosecutor who appeared at the February preliminary hearing, but that is not unusual.
No transcript of the proceedings was in DiNardo’s court file, and it’s unknown if a record of the proceeding exists. Defense attorneys typically have a stenographer make a record of preliminary hearing proceedings.
Sources with knowledge of the preliminary hearing said that DiNardo's attorney, Michael Parlow, raised objections about the "missing doctor's signature" on the involuntary commitment paperwork.
A little more than five weeks after the May 30 dismissal, authorities said, DiNardo shot and killed Jimi Taro Patrick, 19, of Newtown Township. Two days later, DiNardo and his cousin, Sean Kratz, 20, of Philadelphia, allegedly murdered Dean Finocchiaro, 19, of Middletown; Tom Meo, 21, of Plumstead; and Mark Sturgis, 22, of Pennsburg, Montgomery County. The men were lured to a Solebury farm owned by the DiNardo family over several days earlier this month, where they were killed and buried, authorities say.
Authorities allege a .357 Magnum handgun that belonged to DiNardo’s mother, Sandra DiNardo, and a .22 caliber rifle were used in the murders. Harran declined to comment on how many guns the Bensalem family owns.  
A Pennsylvania State Police spokesman said a past involuntary commitment doesn't prohibit someone from living in a household where firearms owned by someone else are present.
Records in the case file for the gun possession charge show that, in a March 24 email, Bensalem Detective John Monaghan requested Gallagher authorize a subpoena for “any and all” records pertaining to the involuntary mental health commitment of DiNardo. The request, however, didn't include the correct agency, Ellis-Marseglia said.
Instead of requesting the records related to DiNardo's July 12, 2016, involuntary commitment from the Bucks County Mental Health/Developmental Programs, the police in an email asked the district judge to subpoena Lenape Valley Crisis Services and Doylestown Hospital for the records "showing the 302 was upheld after initial evaluation." Lenape Valley, Bucks County’s emergency mental health service provider, has a unit at Doylestown Hospital.
The same day that Monaghan made the request, Gallagher issued subpoenas for someone from Lenape Valley Mental Health Crisis Services to appear at a March 29 preliminary hearing and produce any records pertaining to DiNardo’s 302 commitment. Gallagher also issued a subpoena for Doylestown Hospital to appear at the same hearing and bring “any and all records” related to DiNardo.
But those agencies wouldn't have had the completed 302 paperwork on file because it was filed with the county mental health agency, which can release them only with authorization from Pennsylvania State Police, according to agency administrator Donna Duffy-Bell. 
Once state police authorize the county to release the records, they are forwarded, Duffy-Bell said.
She also said her agency receives “very minimal” requests — fewer than five a year — for 302 records from police. She added that her staff has in the past reviewed the proper process for requesting 302 commitment records in its crisis intervention training sessions with law enforcement. 
The Bucks County District Attorney's Office authorized Bensalem police to refile the original firearms possession charge against DiNardo June 21, according to court documents. Harran said the refiling was delayed because the arresting officer — who is the one who has to re-file the charge — was on vacation, then assigned to overnight patrol when she returned. The gun possession charge was refiled July 10, after authorities began searching the DiNardo family's Solebury farm as part of the investigation into the missing men who were later found murdered. 
Jo Ciavaglia: 215-949-4181; email: jciavaglia@calkins.com; Twitter: @JoCiavaglia

How 302 commitment works with gun possession

  • If a 302 involuntary mental health commitment is upheld by the evaluating physician, it provides for up to 120 hours of treatment. Upon the upholding of the 302 by the evaluating physician, the county mental health office submits to the State Police and county sheriff's office written notification per the Pennsylvania Uniform Firearms Act.
  • If the 302 is not upheld by the physician, no notification is sent to the State police or Sheriff’s office. It is as if the 302 did not exist.
  • If the 302 is approved/upheld by the physician and the person stabilizes within 120 hours or the person converts to a voluntary admission, then a 303 hearing does not have to be held. The person still cannot possess guns, however, because the 302 was upheld.
  • If the 302 is approved/upheld by the physician and, at a later date (even years into the future), the person wants to file for an expungement of the original 302, he/she can do that through the Court of Common Pleas. If the Court finds for the individual, his/her name will be removed from the data bases at the Sheriff's office, State Police, and the Department of Mental Health. The person then could possess firearms.
  • If a person who has been the subject of an approved/upheld 302 attempts to purchase a firearm by misrepresenting that he/she has a 302 history on a gun purchase application, local authorities can choose to press charges. In such cases, the process that is to be followed is that the local authority needs to make a request for records to my Department through the State police. Sealed records documenting the executed 302 are provided once the request is received from the State police. These charges are usually heard at the Magisterial District Justice level
Source: Bucks County Mental Health/Behavioral Health Department

Appeals court upholds contempt charge, jail sentence against Claire Risoldi

Posted July 18, 2017

A Pennsylvania appeals court has upheld a contempt judgment against a politically connected Bucks County woman for violating a court order barring her from contacting prosecution witnesses in a $20 million fraud case in which she is a defendant.

Attorney Jack McMahon, who is representing Claire Risoldi, 70, of Buckingham, vowed on Tuesday to appeal the case to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, but didn't provide additional comment on the appeals court decision.


Claire Risoldi
In a nine-page decision issued Monday, the three state judges found that the lower court did not abuse its discretion in finding Risoldi was in “indirect criminal contempt of court.”
Last month marked one year since Chester County Senior Judge Thomas Gavin found Risoldi in contempt of court for using the subpoena process to skirt his no-contact order with witnesses in the fraud case and ordered her to serve 30 days in jail.
“The record indicates Judge Gavin’s order was definite, clear and specific and left no doubt or uncertainty in the mind of either Risoldi or her counsel,” the appeals court wrote. The appeals court order also noted that Risoldi was in the courtroom when the Feb. 8, 2016, order was issued and McMahon indicated that he understood what it meant.
Claire Risoldi, her daughter, Carla Risoldi, 50, of Solebury, son Carl A. Risoldi, 46, and his wife, Sheila Risoldi, 45, both of Buckingham, are accused of fraud and related offenses in connection with alleged false insurance claims filed following an October 2013 fire at the family estate, Clairemont, in Buckingham, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office. Through their respective attorneys, the family members consistently have denied any wrongdoing in the state’s fraud case.
Gavin is overseeing the Risoldi fraud case and related matters after all Bucks County judges recused themselves in 2015, when the criminal charges were filed against the family, which has close ties with the county’s Republican Party. No trial date has been scheduled in the Risoldi cases as other outstanding related appeals await Superior Court decisions.
Claire Risoldi, who will be tried separately from her other family members, also faces charges of insurance fraud dating back as far as 1984, as well as charges of witness intimidation. In April 2016, state prosecutors learned that Claire Risoldi had subpoenas served on witnesses in the 2013 fraud case, prompting them to file the contempt of court motion, as well as witness intimidation charges.
The appellate judges disagreed with the argument McMahon raised that Risoldi did not violate the order because she never had any contact with witnesses. The appeal order also noted that Risoldi didn’t contest that she personally participated in preparing and serving the subpoenas.
“Despite the lower court’s directive Risoldi, personally and without the assistance of attorney McMahon, proceeded to have a series of subpoenas served,” the order stated. Among the recipients of the subpoena were Buckingham Police Department, Bucks County District Attorney’s Office and the Buckingham Fire Marshal’s office.
McMahon has 30 days to file a petition for the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to hear the case; if that appeal is filed, Risoldi will remain free without bail while the high court decides if it will hear the case.