Delco D.A. seeks to oust Yeadon official

The Delaware County District Attorney's Office announced yesterday that it had filed a complaint seeking to oust from office a Yeadon Borough councilman who has a 2003 felony-theft conviction.

Terry Allen McGirth, 53, was still on probation for embezzling $100,000 from Davita Inc. in Berwyn, where he worked as a collections representative, when he ran for council in 2007.

Pennsylvania law does not bar convicted felons from running for office, but it does jeopardize their ability to stay on the ballot and hold office.

Although the issue was made public during his campaign, McGirth was elected.

The matter has divided the seven-person council and generated complaints in the community.

"We had asked him a while ago to step down because of the confusion it has created within the borough," Mayor Jacqueline Mosley said. McGirth, she said, declined to step aside.

Messages left for McGirth and his attorney, Tracy Walsh, were not returned.

A court hearing will be scheduled soon, said Erica Parham, spokeswoman for the District Attorney's Office.

The office said it had received an anonymous complaint about the conflict in July and began an investigation.

McGirth's legal woes extend beyond this most recent complaint.

On Oct. 3, Delaware County District Attorney G. Michael Green filed misdemeanor charges of indecent assault and harassment against McGirth. He is alleged to have inappropriately kissed the borough's finance director, Terri Phifer Vaughn, a number of times. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Dec. 5.

McGirth, who is still on probation in the Chester County case, also has incurred the wrath of Judge William P. Mahon because he has repaid only $5,235 of the $113,390.35 he owes in restitution, court records show.

Yesterday, Yeadon Borough Solicitor Robert W. Scott said that if and when the seat becomes vacant, council would have 30 days to appoint a successor, who would serve until the next elected officials are seated, in January 2010.

In Pennsylvania, felons can continue to hold office until a complaint is made.

The candidacy could be challenged by "any citizen who's angry about the situation," said Wesley M. Oliver, a professor of criminal and constitutional law at Widener University. He said the challenge would likely be successful, courtesy of Article II, Section 7 of the Pennsylvania Constitution.

It states, "No person hereafter convicted of embezzlement of public monies, bribery, perjury or other infamous crime, shall be eligible to the General Assembly, or capable of holding any office of trust or profit in this commonwealth."

Because the courts have defined "infamous crimes" as felonies, the law essentially bars convicted felons from holding office, Oliver said.

"We believe [McGirth] falls under the 'infamous crime' with the conviction he's had," Parham said.

Once a felon is elected, only a district attorney or attorney general can oust him - a situation fraught with peril - said Bruce Ledewitz, a professor at Duquesne University Law School.

Ledewitz said district attorneys do not always exercise their responsibility to remove someone from office. He said allowing such a failure to act was a flaw in the anticorruption legislation, which dates to at least 1870.

"I've argued that then the [elected] person serves at the pleasure of the D.A.," he said.

Some local politicians have been bumped from their posts in recent years.

In April 2006, Chester County District Attorney Joseph W. Carroll removed a West Caln Township supervisor. Robert T. Stewart, who was elected in November 2005, had a 1992 bribery conviction.

Former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce L. Castor Jr. initiated removal proceedings against five officials during his tenure, including Pete Cianci, a Conshohocken Borough Council member with a 1993 felony drug conviction, and Upper Merion school board member Francis "Shorty" Schultz, who had a 1988 felony stolen-property conviction.

In 2002, a Delaware County Court judge ordered Darby Borough Councilman Bruce Rogers removed from office after it was determined that he had a manslaughter conviction.