Settlement Offer to End Dispute in Township
Sugar Grove – Warren County’s Sugar Grove Township has reportedly reached a settlement with its Old Order Amish population and the US Department of Justice, allowing the religious community to follow their traditional waste disposal practices. Since 2004 the township has been attempting to make the Amish community attach to the public sewer system, but doing so, the Amish argue, would violate their religious beliefs. The settlement needs approval by a federal judge but would forgive 21 years of liens and fines placed on the Amish who refused to obey the sewer authority and exempt them from future expansions.

D’Onofrio Not Guilty
Erie – On Friday an Erie County jury returned a ‘not guilty’ verdict in the trial of a man accused of 2012 homicide. It took barely an hour for jurors to determine that Anthony D’Onofrio was not guilty of homicide in the shooting death of his 20-year-old fiance nearly 13 years ago. Erie County Prosecutors alleged that Anthony shot his fiance Lexie Castile in the head and killed her in their shared apartment. The case, however, was cold for over a decade while officials tried to determine if there was evidence of homicide or if Lexie had taken her own life. Authorities charged D’Onofrio with homicide in relation to the death in 2023, 11 years after the shooting took place; the jury determined the death was suicide and not murder.