Evanko expected to plead
A one-time prominent Butler doctor already in prison for molesting a former Boy Scout is expected to enter a plea on allegations that he also inappropriately touched two boys from Summit Academy.
David Evanko, 59, is scheduled to appear in Butler County Court on April 22 for what court records have deemed “a plea and special sentencing.”
Evanko's defense attorney, Stanton Levenson of Pittsburgh, on Monday confirmed the purpose of the court appearance, but he refused to reveal any of the details of the proposed plea arrangement.
Dennis Fisher, a spokesman for the state Attorney General's office, which is prosecuting both cases, refused to “confirm or deny” any details related to the case because it still is pending.
Even if both sides agree to a plea arrangement, it still would need a judge's approval to be official.
Evanko stands accused of using his position as a doctor to assault two residents of Summit Academy, ages 15 and 17, who were supposed to be receiving medical treatment in 2008 and 2009.
Meantime, Evanko still is in the State Correctional Institution at Camp Hill, where he is serving a 6- to 15-year prison sentence that was issued for the Boy Scout case, in which Evanko was convicted of statutory rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.
Evanko, according to testimony, first encountered the victim in that case when the victim was a 12-year-old Boy Scout in the troop led by Evanko in 1992.
The victim, now 32, testified during the trial that Evanko molested him more than 100 times when he was between 13 and 18 years old at the doctor's house, on vacations and in the doctor's camper.
Senior Judge Fred Anthony of Erie County presided over Evanko's five-day trial in May, and afterward convicted the defendant, deemed him a sexually violent predator under the state's Megan's Law and sentenced him.
The defense had filed the paperwork asking Anthony to overturn his own verdict, but Levenson said he would withdraw that request.
Anthony presided over the case because all Butler County judges recused themselves, and the first judge to hear the case, Clarion County Senior Judge Charles Alexander, died.
Following the conviction in the Boy Scout case, Anthony recused himself from the Summit Academy case. And now Senior Judge William Ober of Westmoreland County has been appointed by the state's Supreme Court to preside over that case.
