Jury Convicts PA Trooper of Murdering His Girlfriend’s Husband

 

INDIANA, Pa. – A suspended Pennsylvania State Trooper faces life in prison after a jury convicted him in the bloody slashing death of a dentist who was divorcing the lawman’s live-in girlfriend.

The jury found Trooper Kevin Foley, 43, guilty of a single count of first-degree murder, returning the verdict at 10 p.m. Wednesday after six hours of deliberations.

Foley, of Indiana, Pa., was the last witness the jury heard, taking the stand Wednesday to say he was only joking when he told colleagues he wished for Dr. John Yelenic’s death.

Prosecutors said Foley stopped at Yelenic’s home after a hockey game and slashed him with a knife before slamming his head through a window, leaving the dentist to bleed to death in his Blairsville home on April 13, 2006

“John has his justice tonight,” said Yelenic’s cousin, Mary Ann Clark, who was crying after the verdict was read.

Yelenic, 39, was killed a day before he was to sign papers finalizing the divorce from his wife, Michele, who was living with Foley. The couple’s separation was so rancorous that Yelenic’s attorney asked a judge to issue a posthumous divorced decree — saying Yelenic would have wanted it — but the judge refused, saying she couldn’t legally end a marriage that was terminated with Yelenic’s death.

Foley’s attorney said he’ll appeal.

“We’re very disappointed with the verdict,” said defense attorney Jeffrey Monzo. “We still believe Kevin is innocent. We will press forward.”

Foley has been on unpaid suspension since his arrest in September 2007. He will be formally sentenced June 1, but the first-degree murder conviction carries a mandatory life sentence without parole.

In his testimony Wednesday, Foley flatly denied killing Yelenic and explained that he was only “joking” when he told other troopers, who had testified earlier in the trial, he wished the man would die.

Asked by his other defense attorney, Richard Galloway, if he “in any manner, at any time, with any instrumentality” caused Yelenic’s death, Foley said, “No, sir, I did not.”

“Are you innocent?” Galloway asked.

“Yes, sir, I am innocent,” Foley said.

Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek had introduced testimony that DNA found under Yelenic’s fingernails was likely from Foley and that bloody shoe prints at the scene matched a pair Foley was known to wear at the time.

Krastek questioned Foley about testimony by other troopers who said he talked about wishing for Yelenic’s death. One trooper testified that Foley asked for his help to kill Yelenic.

Foley acknowledged that he didn’t like Yelenic, but said he was a practical joker and had made the comments in jest.

“Is it funny when you asked … that you wanted help killing John Yelenic?” Krastek said. “What’s so funny about that? Tell me the joke.”

“There isn’t any joke,” Foley replied. “It’s just my personality, my behavior.”

Foley was led from the courtroom in handcuffs and remains jailed pending his formal sentencing.

PA Legislator Proposes Tax To Pay For State Police Service To Municipalities With No Police Force

 According to an article in the September 26, 2008 Herald / Standard newspaper, PA State Representative John Pallone of Westmoreland County has proposed that residents of municipalities with populations of 10,000 or more and no local police force, be required to pay a tax of $100 per head to defray the costs of the PA State Police responding to calls for police assistance in those municipalities.

 Most of our readers from outside of PA do not understand that PA law, unlike many other states, does not require municipal governments in the Commonwealth to operate police departments.

 Amazingly, many of the municipalities that do not operate their own police forces are more than financially able to do so. In Westmoreland County, Hempfield Twp., which has no police force, has well over 40,000 residents making it the most populous municipality in the county & the largest geographically. In Fayette County, tiny Ohiopyle Borough with a population of under 225 residents employs a police officer while the Twp’s. of North Union, with a population in excess of 10,000, & South Union, which has an annual budget in the millions of dollars, do not employ a single police officer.

 Ironically, South Union Twp. did operate a full time police dept. at one time, but abolished it right about the time their Twp. exploded with economic development. S.U. Twp. is now the wealthiest municipality in Fayette County and the PSP Barracks in Fayette (the Uniontown Station) is the busiest in the entire Commonwealth.

 And, also unlike in many other states, Sheriffs in PA are not required by law to answer calls for police assistance when a given municipality does not operate it’s own police force. That responsibility falls to the PA State Police (PSP), an organization that is not well suited to responding to or addressing “local” problems.

 Further complicating the issue is the fact that in the Commonwealth of PA there are no “unincorporated” areas. Every citizen lives within a municipality; a Borough which is basically a mini city governed by an elected council and Mayor, a Township which is a fairly rural area governed by an elected Board of Supervisors or a City which is governed by an elected Council and Mayor.

 The issue came to the fore several years ago with the collapse of the bulk of steel mills & coal mines, the major employers in Southwestern PA. When the mills & mines closed many thousands of people were laid off, bankruptcy filings exploded, home foreclosures rose to previously unseen levels, and the tax bases of many municipal governments, which were predominantly dependent on real estate taxes, shrunk to all time lows causing elected officials to make budget cuts. Almost without fail those cuts were made by laying off police officers and in many municipalities, police departments were abolished altogether.

 Many of the municipalities that abolished their police forces looked to the Sheriffs of their counties for police protection, but county governments in PA are also predominantly reliant upon real estate taxes and were hit just as hard as the municipalities that were now seeking county help; meaning the Sheriffs were unable to provide help due to their own budget shortfalls.

 In addition to the Sheriffs not having the financial means to provide help to the municipalities, PA law does not require Sheriffs’ to act as law enforcement officers, although they can, and many of them were not inclined to get involved with answering calls for police assistance and making arrests as Sheriffs, unlike police officers, must get elected, and in general, an elected official does not gain many votes by arresting potential voters.

 Thusly, the task of providing routine police services to the affected citizenry fell to the Troopers of the PSP. The PSP was never intended to answer routine calls for police services such as neighborhood noise complaints & domestic disputes and they were & are ill prepared to do so.

 Possibly the greatest benefit of a municipality operating a local police force is that the officers that will enforce the laws spend a great deal of time in the community they patrol. They get to know the residents, good & bad, as well as the problems in the community. This allows the officers to apply their knowledge of the community when answering calls and deciding whether or not to make arrests while the PSP Troopers usually know very little about the residents of individual communities and the problems in that area causing them to make “black & white” decisions in a colorful world.

 The issue of funding PSP services to municipalities without their own police forces has been hotly debated and many different proposals to address the issue have been put forth.

 The idea to institute a “head tax” upon the residents of municipalities with 10,000 residents or more and no local police forces, as the latest proposal would do, should not be instituted.

 The PSP is funded by the Legislature which does not collect real estate taxes as  municipalities do. The state collects the bulk of it’s revenue through income and sales taxes, which are paid by most, if not all, Pennsylvanians including those that live in the targeted municipalities.

 Residents that live in municipalities that operate their own police forces pay the same rates of income & sales taxes to the legislature as do the residents of municipalities that do not operate their own police forces, but they do not receive the same amount of services from the PSP because they fund their own officers.

 In essence the residents of municipalities with their own police forces are subsidizing PSP services to the municipalities that choose not to provide their own police forces. This is just plain unfair.

 On the other hand, the residents of the non police municipalities are already paying for the services of the PSP and the legislature cannot charge twice for the same services. However, the legislature can & should provide for a state income tax deduction for residents that live in municipalities that fund their own police forces. This would provide relief to the residents of municipalities with their own police forces that have been subsidizing PSP services to the residents of “non police” municipalities while encouraging the elected officials in the “non police” municipalities to institute their own police forces.

 But, we believe the best way to address this situation is for the legislature, as is within their authority, to simply require that all municipalities provide local police services.  Municipalities that truly do not have the financial means to provide local officers, and there are many such situations, can join or contract with neighboring municipalities to form regional police departments as is already being done in several areas of the Commonwealth.