Tiny Pa. town corrupted 1,000 drivers, ripped off state: report

The Pennsylvania district court in the little Susquehanna River borough of Laceyville, Wyoming County -- pop. 371 -- stands accused of "accepting false guilty pleas from 1,025 defendants for local handicapped parking violations instead of speeding violations" in 2009-13, by Eugene DePasquale, the state's elected Auditor General, in this report.

The town has just one handicapped parking space. Why would anyone plead to guilty to such a rude offense if they didn't do it?

Because that's what local police suggested to speeders they pulled over in Lacevyille on U.S. 6 -- Grand Army of the Republic Highway, the road connecting the brick and frame small towns, dairy farms and gas wells of the state's Northern Tier counties -- "in exchange for dropping a more costly speeding violation," according to DePasquale.

Police "would instruct defendants to plead not guity and request a hearing" before the local district magistrate (in Pennsylvania those are elected, and the judge doesn't have to be a lawyer.) "The defendant was given the option to plead guilty to violating a local handicapped parking ordinance," and the charge would later vanish under a "first-time offenders program."

By dropping the speeding charge, Laceyville kept "100 percent" of local handicapped-parking fines -- instead of having to impose a larger fine and costs and send the difference to the state, DePasquale notes. The reduced charges cost the state $44,000 from its share of speeding violation fines, $32,000 in Catastrophic Fund insurance surcharges, and $10,000 in Emergency Medical Service surcharges. Those surcharges are applied to speeding tickets but not local violations like handicapped parking.

When state auditors got around to reviewing the borough's books, they noticed the outsized handicapped parking fines:  Since the borough only has one handicapped parking spot, the fact fines were accumulating at the rate of three per resident over a five-year period "was a red flag," DePasquale wrote. He also noted it was disappointing to see so many drivers agree to improperly plead to offenses they didn't commit.

In his response, included in DePasquale's audit, the local judge, John Hovan, whose district also covers nine adjoining small towns, wrote that the arrangement proceeded from good intentions and local difficulties: The court began agreeing to the parking pleas after learning police had been incorrectly reporting the coordinates of the local speed trap -- which meant that speeding convictions were likely to be overturned until that part of the town was re-surveyed. Both the loss of fines and the survey would have been costly for the little borough.

The judge also noted that Laceyville and its police department had gone through "tumultuous transitions" in 2013 and 2014, including a new mayor and replacements of veteran officers. Among its ranking officers, one quit, another "was fired and he has a federal lawsuit filed for wrongful discharge," and a third "was photographed selling an AK-47 while on duty, in full uniform, from the back of his police cruiser," before getting "arrested for DUI while driving a police vehicle while in full uniform," according to the report. These matters generated litigation, and the town has had a tough time getting new officers to sign up, or levy more fines, with that litigation unresolved, the judge added.

Notwithstanding the judge's response, DePasquale is recommending the local court send $44,000 -- half of what Laceyville collected from the phony handicapped violations -- to the state Revenue Department to make good the state's lost speeding fines. He's also referring the case to state and local prosecutors and the Pennsylvania Supreme Court, which is supposed to oversee the state's elected judges.

"This audit should serve as a warning and a wake-up call to local courts and police units across the state that these actions will not be tolerated," DePasquale concluded. (Updated)