kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG A Blair County commissioner and judge are teaming up to initiate a study, at no expense to taxpayers, focusing on revenue and expenditures in the county’s court-related departments.
Commissioner Laura Burke, who announced the initiative during Tuesday’s commissioners meeting, said she and Judge Wade Kagarise intend to examine financial data and related practices of the county’s court-related offices and compare it to similar data and practices of counties with similar demographics and/or case loads.
Burke and Kagarise believe the pursuit should allow them to come up with recommendations for county leaders.
“We’re initiating this study without preconceived results,” Burke said when asked about specific goals or anticipated recommendations.
kstephens@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG A Blair County judge is allowing aggravated assault and related charges to stand in a criminal case where the victim maintains that she was assaulted by someone other than the man now accused.
In a recent opinion, Judge Timothy M. Sullivan reported reviewing police video evidence, a recording of the preliminary hearing and testimony from a December court hearing where Matthew A. Sales, 32, Philadelphia, claimed that the wrong man was arrested.
“It will be left to the trier of fact to ultimately determine whether the commonwealth can meet its burden of proving the defendant guilty beyond a reasonable doubt,” Sullivan acknowledged in his order.
ifredregill@altoonamirror.com
HOLLIDAYSBURG A 40-year-old Johnstown man with a long history of drug abuse said Tuesday that selling drugs allowed him to support his own habit.
“I was using drugs for a long time,” Malik Lydil Johnson told Judge Wade Kagarise, who handed down a sentence of six to 14 years based on Johnson’s plea to criminal charges in five heroin sales inside Blair County.
“This is the first time in my life that I’ve wanted to change,” Johnson told Kagarise.
Johnson has been housed in the Blair County Prison since his Aug. 2, 2018, arrest outside the food court of the Logan Valley Mall where he sold heroin laced with fentanyl to a confidential informant for $250. It was the fifth sale police reported witnessing during an investigation that began in June 2018.