2 charged with taking dirt bike from bar
A Connoquenessing Township 18-year-old is accused of stealing a new dirt bike Thursday from the back of a pickup truck outside a Clay Township bar.
State police said Noah G. Skelley admitted that he took the 2020 Kawasaki KX450 with the help of a friend. Police recovered the bike, valued at $7,500, at the friend's house in Pine Township, Mercer County.
On Friday, police arrested Skelley, who was arraigned by District Judge Kevin O'Donnell on felony counts of theft and conspiracy to commit theft. He is free on $5,000 bail.
State police in Mercer, meanwhile, on Friday also charged the teen's friend, Michael B. Sopo, 21, with a felony count of receiving stolen property.
Sopo is already in the Lawrence County Jail on unrelated criminal charges.
The victim, a 21-year-old West Sunbury man, reported around 12:50 a.m. Thursday that his dirt bike was taken, police said. He told the investigating trooper the bike was in the bed of his pickup, which was parked at the Rock House Bar & Grill parking lot on Route 8.
The owner of the bike took to social media, according to investigators, posting information about the theft. The post apparently led to a tip that the vehicle could be found at Sopo's home on Clintonville Road.
By 7:15 p.m. that same day, the bike was found at the home, police said. It had sustained unspecified damage.
Sopo admitted that he had been at the Rock House when Skelley allegedly stole the bike, which was brought to his house and stored in a shed.
“Sopo also admitted to riding the motorcycle after it was brought to his residence,” police at the Mercer station said.
Back in Butler, police interviewed Skelley at the barracks around 12:30 a.m. Friday. He told troopers that he and Sopo were at the bar when they noticed the victim's bike.
“Skelley stated that he removed the dirt bike from the bed of the truck (and) drove it out of the parking lot,” according to charging documents, “with Sopo following him in his own vehicle.”
Skelley's preliminary hearing is scheduled for July 7 at the office of District Judge Lewis Stoughton in Chicora. Contacted Tuesday, he said he was retaining an attorney and he declined to comment on the allegations.
Sopo was arrested and arraigned Friday on misdemeanor charges in an unrelated case filed June 18 by state police in New Castle.
He remains in the Lawrence County Prison on $25,000 bond on those charges, which include theft, terroristic threats, unlawful restraint, simple assault, reckless endangerment and criminal mischief.
His arraignment on the felony charge in the dirt bike case is pending.
