WASHINGTON – Police are investigating but have not yet charged a driver who’s being accused of taking a mechanic on a wild ride in the bed of a pickup truck after a dispute over an unpaid bill for repairs at a western Pennsylvania garage.

Damon Lemasters tells reporters he jumped into the bed of the truck when he realized the customer wasn’t going to pay the $1,500 tab for the repairs Tuesday at Fred’s Automotive Garage in Washington, which is about 20 miles southwest of Pittsburgh.

Washington police tell The Associated Press they aren’t identifying the driver, because they were still investigating the incident on Friday.

But Lemasters contends he was driven for several miles along Interstate 79 and persuaded the driver to stop about 20 miles away by kicking in the cab’s back window and climbing into the passenger seat.



Ex-coach gets up to 23 months in player-sex case

NORRISTOWN – A former squash coach at a Philadelphia-area private school who pleaded guilty to corruption of minors involving a student could spend nearly two years in prison.

Fifty-one-year-old James Civello was sentenced Thursday to time-served to 23 months in prison for carrying on a sexual relationship with a 16-year-old girl on his team at the Shipley School.

Civello, of Upper Black Eddy, was arrested last summer after police say the girl and her parents reported the relationship. He pleaded guilty in May and his attorney says he’s sought counseling.

Civello’s now-18-year-old victim asked that he not serve additional jail time in a letter read to the court. She wrote that the relationship had “positive influences” on her.

Montgomery County prosecutors say the victim has been “manipulated.”

 

Witness: Bride-to-be made threats before killing

ALLENTOWN – A Pennsylvania woman charged with fatally stabbing her fiance hours before they were set to be married allegedly killed the man after he raised his hands palms-up and asked her, “is this what you really want to do?”

Na Cola Franklin was bound over for trial on a criminal homicide charge Thursday after a Lehigh County district judge heard testimony describing the Aug. 11 death of Billy Brewster.

Brewster’s cousin Nakia Kali says Franklin threatened to stab him and Brewster’s 13-year-old son when they tried to calm her down. He says Franklin then stabbed her husband-to-be in the heart with a kitchen knife at their Whitehall Township apartment.

Franklin’s attorney says his client was in an abusive relationship and Brewster was trying to leave with their nine-month-old baby.

 

Autopsy set on body found by kayaker in Pa. river

PITTSBURGH – An autopsy has been scheduled on the badly decomposed body of a man found floating by a kayaker in a Pittsburgh river.

Authorities say the body was found in the Monongahela River about 4 p.m. Thursday between the 10th Street and Birmingham bridges, east of downtown.

The Allegheny County medical examiner’s office says it has yet to identify the body, and that an autopsy was scheduled for Friday.

The condition of the body was such that police could not immediately tell if foul play might have been involved in the man’s death.



Police: Ex-maintenance man took woman’s pills

CORAOPOLIS – When a 73-year-old woman couldn’t explain why her painkilling medication kept disappearing, police in her Pittsburgh suburb gave her a video surveillance camera to figure out why.

When she forgot to turn it on, the police did it for her while hiding in her apartment. And police say that’s when they found a former maintenance man was using a key he had copied to enter her apartment and steal the Vicodin pills.

Moon Township police Chief Leo McCarthy says, “In a small community, we can provide more individual attention.”

Fifty-seven-year-old Richard Jugovich was the object of that attention Wednesday, and will face burglary, theft and other charges at a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.

Online court records don’t list an attorney for Jugovich, who doesn’t have a listed phone. Police say he still denies stealing the drugs.



Tow driver: Brakes not beers to blame in death

WILKES-BARRE – A Pennsylvania tow truck driver says mechanical problems are to blame for the death of a woman he hit with her own car, not the four or five beers he drank before being dispatched to help her.

Robert Wickham acknowledged drinking the 24-ounce beers before arriving to help 55-year-old Denise Polinchak on a snowy March 2011 evening in Plains Township, Luzerne County.

But Wickham told the jury Thursday the car’s faulty brakes and Polinchak’s failure to heed his warning to move away are the reasons for her death. He says he threw two more unopened beers over a snow bank after backing into Polinchak only because he was scared.

Wickham faces vehicular homicide and DUI charges.

The jury began deliberating after Wickham’s testimony. Deliberations are set to restart Friday.

 

DA’s phones shut off over unpaid bill

SCRANTON – An unpaid phone bill briefly cut off service to a northeastern Pennsylvania district attorney’s office and the county visitors center.

The unpaid bill was paid Wednesday and service was turned back on in the Lackawanna County visitors center. But it took until Thursday to get the phones working again in the district attorney’s office.

Lackawanna County officials say the $646.74 bill was simply overlooked. But XO Communications officials say in The Times-Tribune of Scranton report that the bill was three months in arrears when services were cut off Tuesday.

 

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