Central Pa. man, 67, jailed for two heroin OD deaths can’t withdraw his guilty pleas, state court says
Updated Feb 26, 2021;
A year after a Dauphin County judge told him he was “legally and morally responsible” for two heroin overdose deaths, a state appeals court has refused to allow a 67-year-old drug dealer to withdraw his guilty pleas in the case.
Instead, the Superior Court panel found that county Judge Richard A. Lewis was correct to sentence James Frederick Newman to 8 to 20 years on prison based on the guilty plea to two drug delivery resulting in death charges Newman entered in the middle of his trial in January 2020.
Teacher sentenced to prison for sexually molesting female student during class trip to Hershey
Updated Jan 28, 2021;
A former New York teacher who pleaded guilty to sexually molesting a 16-year-old student during a class trip to Hershey was sentenced to prison by a Dauphin County judge Thursday.
Judge Richard A. Lewis sentenced Joseph A. Gallagher, 29, of Smithtown, to 9 to 23 months behind bars for the May 2019 incident at a hotel in Swatara Township.
Gallagher, who also was hit with student sex charges in New York, was accompanying students from Bethpage School District on the trip.
Joseph Gallagher, 28
Investigators said he began having sexual conversations with the student several months before the trip and had sexual contact with her. Gallagher and the girl texted each other while at the central Pennsylvania hotel and arranged to meet in his room, where they engaged in sex, police said.
Unlicensed driver pleads no contest to charges he struck, killed 65-year-old pedestrian in Harrisburg
Updated Jan 27, 2021;
Posted Jan 27, 2021
On March 9, 2019, loved ones of Phyllice Taylor held a vigil near the location where she was struck by a car and killed in February in Harrisburg, Pa.
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A 73-year-old man who police said was driving without a license pleaded no contest Wednesday to criminal charges for a crash that killed a 65-year-old pedestrian in Harrisburg.
Samuel White also apologized to the family of Phyllice Taylor, the victim of the February 2019 crash, Assistant District Attorney Kristie Falbo said.
“It’s a tragic situation,” she said.
Harrisburg man barred from withdrawing guilty plea in fatal ambush robbery
Updated Dec 24, 2020;
A Harrisburg man who committed a fatal ambush robbery in league with two teens cannot withdraw the guilty plea that netted him a life prison sentence, a state Superior Court panel has decided.
Demetrius Aquino was 18 in August 2017 when police said he shot and killed Dion Walker during the holdup in Swatara Township. The guilty plea he entered nearly two years later to second-degree murder surprised prosecutors.
Demetrius Aquino
On appeal, Aquino, now 22, claimed Dauphin County Judge Richard A. Lewis should have allowed him to withdraw that plea, even after he admitted to shooting Walker with a .45 caliber pistol and received his life prison term.
Repeat offender pleads, gets 5 years in prison in Dauphin County child-sex case
Updated Dec 22, 2020;
Kenneth Slaughter, 33, also left his hearing before Judge Richard A. Lewis with a warning.
A conviction for any other crime of sexual violence, or any crime of violence, if fact, will net him a guaranteed life prison term, Chief Deputy District Attorney Jennifer Gettle told Slaughter.
“In other words, you have to stay out of trouble,” Lewis said.
Kenneth Slaughter
Slaughter entered his no contest pleas to aggravated assault and corruption of minors charges based on accusations that he had molested a 6-year-old girl in Susquehanna Township in early 2011, Gettle said.