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A Pottstown woman has been formally arraigned in connection with the case of a teenager who planned to shoot up the local high school.
Julie Ann Macedo, 51, of the 100 block of Micklitz Drive, appeared this morning in District Court in Pottstown, accompanied by her attorney, Stephen V. Bottiglieri of Media.
Dressed in a leather coat, blouse and slacks, Macedo stood quietly while Magisterial District Court Judge Thomas A. Palladino read the charges against her. She is accused of tampering with evidence, endangering others, and making a false report to detectives.
According to police, Richard Yanis, 15, of Pottstown, was friends with Macedo's 16-year-old son. The son agreed to hold a bag of guns and ammunition until Yanis needed them to kill "everyone he did not like," and then himself, at Pottstown High School, early this year.
The plot was never carried out because Macedo's son showed her the guns, police said. She drove him to Manatawny Creek in Pottstown's River Front Park, where he threw the guns into the water, court papers said.
When asked by police about the guns, she kept secret their location, told her son to lie about them, and altered her datebook to give the son an alibi, police alleged.
"Her attitude was belligerent and obnoxious towards the police," District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said Wednesday. Bottiglieri said his client had no comment.
The case broke on Dec. 4 when Macedo's son told a teacher where the guns were. That day, divers recovered the guns, and police took Yanis into custody. He is being held as a juvenile at the Montgomery County Youth Center in Audubon on a charge of attempted murder.
Macedo, who suffers from disabling anxiety and depression, was released on her own recognizance after posting 10 percent of $2,500 cash bail. She agreed to continue taking medicine and undergoing mental-health treatment as conditions of her release.
"If she does not follow the conditions, the state will move for a revocation of bail immediately," said Therol Johnson Dix, the assistant district attorney handling the case.
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