STATE
PITTSBURGH — Jury deliberations are under way for a teen charged in the death of a college student while a judge will decide the charges for two other defendants.
Prosecutors allege all three are liable in the June 2012 death of 20-year-old Slippery Rock University student Jordan Coyner. They say the defendants went to his Kennedy Township home to steal cash and marijuana.
Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Michael Berquist alleges Jon Lee hatched the idea of a robbery, Brandon Lind picked the target and Devele Reid pulled the trigger. Lee was 16 and Lind was 17 at the time of Coyner's death.
A Pittsburgh newspaper reports a jury will decide the charges against Lee. Reid and Lind will have their cases decided by Common Pleas Judge Philip Ignelzi.
PITTSBURGH — The job of assistant to the superintendent in a suburban school district no longer exists after the school board voted unanimously to eliminate it at the behest of angry residents.The Baldwin-Whitehall School District board's vote Wednesday night came in a packed high school auditorium of residents, some of whom berated board members while armed police looked on.Residents have expressed outrage that the board created the $120,000-a-year position and then appointed fellow board member Martin Schmotzer to it. Schmotzer resigned from the board to to take the job, but then the board reinstated him last week once he resigned the job after the public outcry.
HARRISBURG — Tom Wolf’s gubernatorial campaign said Wednesday it has raised $2.9 million in addition to the $10 million the businessman plans to spend in the primary race, raising eyebrows but prompting no similar disclosures by his poker-faced Democratic competitors.None of the five other campaigns reached Wednesday was willing to divulge fundraising numbers so early in the process.“The year ain’t over yet,” said Mark Nevins, a spokesman for Rob McCord, the state treasurer who was elected to a second four-year term last year. “Why is he in such a rush?”
