Westmoreland County has a new Clerk of Courts.
Megan Loughner, 35, of Unity was sworn in to office Friday to take over the final 10 months of the clerk’s term, replacing Bryan Kline. He was hired last month as the new warden of Westmoreland County Prison.
The office oversees all criminal court records and documents filed at the county courthouse.
Loughner, a Republican, has worked as a top administrator for Kline since he first took office in 2010, first as the office’s fiscal manager and for the last five years as chief deputy.
“There are no changes planned,” Loughner said. “We’ll continue Bryan’s successful collection programs and we will launch an e-filing program in mid-summer.”
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A Scottdale man will serve up to 40 years in prison for the rape and repeated sexual assault of a young girl over a five-year period that ended in 2016.
Dylan Chiaramonte, 28, declined to speak during his a sentencing hearing Wednesday during which his accuser, now 14, told him she still struggles to deal with the horrors inflicted on her by a man she once trusted.
“What you did to me will haunt me for the rest of my life, and I hope it haunts you, too,” she testified.
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A death row inmate convicted in the 2010 torture and murder of a mentally disabled woman in Greensburg wants a new lawyer after waiting more than three years for his court-appointed counsel to file an appeal.
Ricky Smyrnes, 34, formerly of North Huntingdon, was convicted of first-degree murder and sentenced to death by lethal injection in connection with the fatal stabbing of 30-year-old Jennifer Daugherty in an apartment he shared with five others more than a decade ago.
Pittsburgh lawyer Thomas Farrell was appointed in 2017 to handle the second appeal, which is expected to challenge the quality of Smyrnes’ legal representation during his 2013 trial. Smyrnes, in a letter sent from death row at SCI Phoenix in Montgomery County, claims he has been unable to communicate with Farrell and asked Westmoreland County Common Pleas Court Judge Scott Mears to appoint him
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After a two-month hiatus caused by the winter surge of new coronavirus cases, jury trials in Westmoreland County will resume in February.
President Judge Rita Hathaway said, with new cases of the virus on the decline, it appears safe to reconvene trials, which were suspended in December and January.
“When we had the spike, we decided it would be prudent to stop. Now, we feel we are able to resume because everything is backed up and we need to get moving,” Hathaway said.