A Greenville man has been sentenced to 15 years in prison after his conviction on firearms and drug trafficking crimes in Mercer County. Acting U.S. Attorney Tony Rivetti announced 37 year Joshua Peters will also serve three years of supervised release following his prison sentence. Peters was convicted in December of 2022 on several drug distribution charges and a firearms violation. The investigation established that Peters was responsible for the distribution of over 500 grams of cocaine and over 80 grams of fentanyl in 2021 and 2022.
Senator John Fetterman is discussing the East Palestine train derailment with Western Pennsylvania farmers. Fetterman held a roundtable session with Beaver and Lawrence County growers in Darlington Township yesterday. Fetterman says it was an honor and a privilege to sit down with area producers to learn about their concerns over the derailment. He says the session also served to get their overall feedback and input ahead of the negotiations on the upcoming Farm Bill.
No injuries were reported following a two vehicle accident in Perry Township. State Police report 27 year old Daniel Sauls of Youngstown was traveling south on Mill Hill Road when he struck a vehicle operated by 22 year old Nicholas Penrod of Chicora. Police said both drivers were wearing seatbelts at the time of the crash.
At a State House Transportation Committee hearing on the impact of using gas tax funds to pay for state police operations, lawmakers noted that legislation mirroring Governor Shapiro’s plan to accelerate efforts to reduce those transfers appears to be in the works. He has backed efforts to reduce transferring money from the Motor License Fund, asserting that the state can use the additional dollars to serve as local matching funds to get more federal funding included in the Infrastructure Investment and Jobs Act, which was signed into law two years ago.
Police in Grove City have arrested a woman following a car crash. WFMJ-TV reports 21-year-old Stacy Hackett of Farrell has been charged with recklessly endangering and simple assault in connection to a one-car crash on Grant Street in Grove City Wednesday night .Police say Hackett bit the driver of the car and grabbed the steering wheel, leading to the crash.Hackett’s preliminary hearing is set for April 26th.
On what otherwise would have been the jury’s first full day of deliberation in trial of a man accused of killing a Pittsburgh police officer, the panel delivered a verdict. Christian Bey on Thursday was convicted of first degree criminal homicide for the 2019 fatal shooting of Officer Calvin Hall. Officer Hall’s father, after the verdict was delivered, said that justice has prevailed. Bey faces the possibility of life in prison.
The state Department of Human Services has started to conduct eligibility reviews for over three-and-a-half million Medicaid recipients this month. It’s to decide if they can continue receiving benefits under a federal program that had been enacted only for the COVID pandemic. Under the Federal Medical Assistance Percentage plan, an extra six percent of total Medicaid costs were covered at the national level, which lessened the state share. Because that program is now winding down, the feds say states have to make sure eligibility redeterminations are met. That could mean people who benefited from the COVID plan may no longer be eligible, except in a few certain cases.
A Democratic state lawmaker from Bucks County says he’ll introduce legislation this year to create a digital currency task force. The measure proposed by State Representative John Galloway says the panel would look into cryptocurrencies as well as so-called blockchain technologies. Similar legislation was introduced in 2021 but it never moved out of committee.
Pennsylvania State Police are reporting the results of drug seizures from the first quarter of 2023. Troopers took more than 16-million dollars worth of drugs out of circulation including nearly 230-pounds of cocaine valued at more than five-million dollars. Among the rest of the drugs seized were nearly 400-thousand dollars worth of fentanyl, four-point-six-million dollars worth of processed marijuana and more than two-point-three-million dollars worth of THC extract.