The Tribune Democrat, Johnstown, PA

December 10, 2008

No contest plea issued in deadly emergency brake prank


UNIONTOWN — A Pennsylvania man has pleaded no contest to pulling the emergency brake in a moving car as a prank, flipping the car over and killing his best friend.

Fifty-year-old Emmett Cooke, of Dunbar Township, faces up to 18 months in jail when he’s sentenced in Fayette County court on Feb. 17.

Cooke has pleaded no contest to involuntary manslaughter and reckless endangerment in the crash that killed 49-year-old Terry Kurosky, of Uniontown, on May 7, 2007. Both men were riding in a car driven by a third man when Cooke pulled the brake.

State troopers say Cooke told them he had done the same thing several times in the past “and nothing happened.”