Federal prosecutors on Thursday formally indicted Eugene Albert Horsch, the Olney man at the center of a widening investigation into the disappearance of at least two women, on charges that he illegally possessed firearms and fake federal law enforcement credentials.
The two-count indictment accuses Horsch, 44, of possessing two loaded firearms despite having been convicted of a prior felony, which bars him from having guns. It also alleges that he had “fraudulent identification documents” that appeared to have been issued by the Drug Enforcement Administration and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, but that neither agency had produced.
The indictment stems from Horsch’s arrest on June 19. On that day, U.S. Park Police officers recovered two loaded firearms — a .38 Special revolver with an obliterated serial number and a Taurus .40-caliber semiautomatic pistol — from beneath a front seat of his black BMW, which was parked in a restricted area near Independence Hall in Center City, according to court records.
Officers said they also recovered counterfeit DEA credentials from the vehicle. And later, during a search of Horsch’s home in the 400 block of West Chew Avenue, federal and local authorities uncovered fraudulent FBI credentials and a desktop computer that may have been “used to facilitate” the fake documents, according to the indictment.
Horsch has remained in federal custody since his initial appearance in U.S. District Court last month, after a magistrate judge ordered him detained pending a trial.
Horsch’s attorney, Jerome Brown, said this week: “We believe Mr Horsch is innocent.”
The federal case has unfolded alongside a broader investigation that began after Horsch’s arrest. Authorities searching his deteriorating twin home found another firearm, equipment used to grow marijuana, barrels of chemicals, ashes of least one relative, documents connected to two women who have been missing for years, and an unsigned, handwritten letter describing violence and referencing serial killer Ted Bundy, officials have said.
Investigators have said they have not found human remains at the property, but found a “significant” amount of blood. They have continued examining evidence recovered from the home as they search for any possible links between Horsch and the disappearances of Blair Tonzelli, who was reported missing in 2023, and Amy McHale, his father’s former wife, who was last heard from at the Olney property in 2016.
Brown previously said he did not believe his client had harmed either woman.
“I’d be shocked if [police] found any harm related to those missing persons at that location,” Brown said after Horsch’s detention hearing.
Staff writer Ryan W. Briggs contributed to this article.
Police shot and killed a man outside St. Christopher’s Hospital for Children in North Philadelphia on Thursday, authorities said.
Officers were called to the hospital shortly before 10:30 a.m. for a report by hospital staff of an “irate man,” said Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel.
At a briefing with the media Thursday evening, Bethel clarified that the man, whose name and age were not released, did not threaten anyone at the hospital.
“The hospital was at no time under threat,” Bethel said.
The man was at the hospital yesterday related to something involving a “child in the hospital,” Bethel said, then later adding that it was the man’s son.
The man was asked to leave Wednesday, and when he returned Thursday, he was not allowed to enter the hospital, said Bethel, who did not elaborate on why the man was asked to leave.
But when he returned Thursday, “he did not threaten” staff and was “compliant.”
Shortly thereafter, a relative called police and reported that the man was suicidal and may have a gun, Bethel said.
Police drove to the bus stop on Erie Avenue outside the hospital where the man was and an officer was just exiting from the passenger side of a police vehicle when the man allegedly pulled out a gun, Bethel said. The officer then fired.
The man was transported to Temple University Hospital, where he later died. Bethel said a gun was recovered at the scene.
A woman standing next to the man, who Bethel described as his girlfriend, was grazed by a bullet. He said she was in good condition.
“He did not fire his weapon,” Bethel said about the man.
The officer who fatally shot the man was placed on administrative duty while the shooting is investigated.
At an earlier media briefing, Bethel described the shooting as a tragedy that unfolded in a matter of minutes.
He added: “We have a lot to sort through,” including the mental state of the man who was killed. “He may have been going through some mental issue,” Bethel said.
No patients or hospital staff were injured, said hospital spokesperson Bill Tierney. The man who was shot did not come inside the hospital, he said.
The hospital initially went into a lockdown, which has since been lifted, Tierney said. Some entrances to the hospital were closed during the initial police investigation but they had reopened by Thursday afternoon, he said.
Police have not released the name, age, or rank of the officer who discharged his weapon.
Michael Lopez, a senior staffer at a sports complex across the street from the hospital, said he heard about a half dozen gunshots. Initially mistaking the gunfire for July Fourth fireworks, Lopez said he came out to Erie Avenue, where he saw a throng of police officers — and a woman he said appeared to be bleeding from her neck.
“It was gruesome,” Lopez said.
Thursday’s shooting was the second fatal shooting by a Philadelphia police officer in less than three weeks.
On June 14, three officers were injured and Eric Franks was fatally wounded after exchanging gunfire in the Wynnefield neighborhood of West Philadelphia. The officers — who were shot in the hip, leg, and face — were hospitalized and recovered, police said.
Their names had not been released as of Thursday because of an active threat assessment, said police spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp.
— Staff writer Robert Moran contributed to this article.
A teenager who authorities say killed a Penn State student surrendered to Philadelphia police on Thursday, one day after U.S. marshals captured a second teen wanted in the slaying more than 1,700 miles from the South Philadelphia street where the crime occurred.
Smith and Azzubair Outen-Fleming, 16, are expected to face charges of murder, robbery, criminal conspiracy, illegal possession of a firearm, and related crimes in the June 6 death of William “Billy” Schmidt.
Both teens had been on the run until Wednesday night, authorities said, when members of the U.S. Marshals Service arrested Outen-Fleming at a house in Colorado Springs, Colo.
Smith remained at large until Thursday.
Police have said Outen-Fleming and Smith killed Schmidt, 22, shortly after 1 a.m. as he walked toward his South Philadelphia home.
According to prosecutors, surveillance video captured two masked people — identified by investigators as Outen-Fleming and Smith — robbing Schmidt of his cell phone, searching his pockets, and then, moments later, shooting him.
Smith, they said, is accused of firing the fatal shot.
The teenagers fled after the shooting, police said.
On Wednesday, prosecutors also announced charges against Outen-Fleming’s stepfather, Donte Abdulmalik, who they said helped him evade authorities after the killing.
Abdulmalik was charged with hindering apprehension, obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and related crimes.
Deputies with the U.S. Marshals Service’s Violent Offender Task Force tracked Outen-Fleming this week to a house in southern Colorado Springs with “ties to his family in Philadelphia,” Supervisory Deputy U.S. Marshal Robert Clark said. After conducting surveillance, deputies arrested him there late Wednesday.
Schmidt’s father, William, did not return a phone call Thursday afternoon, and attempts to reach other family members were unsuccessful.
Philadelphia police spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp said it was not clear when Outen-Fleming would be returned to Philadelphia.
A teen wanted in the shooting death of Penn State student William “Billy” Schmidt in South Philadelphia last month was apprehended in Colorado, the U.S. Marshals Service said Wednesday night.
Azzubair Outen-Fleming, 16, was taken into custody in Colorado Springs at the home of a distant relative, the U.S. Marshals Service said. The teen was being housed at the Zebulon Pike Youth Center awaiting extradition to Philadelphia.
Earlier on Wednesday, District Attorney Larry Krasner announced the arrest of Outen-Fleming’s stepfather for allegedly hindering the police investigation into the slaying of Schmidt.
Donte Abdulmalik, 35, was charged with hindering apprehension, obstruction of justice, tampering with evidence, and related crimes, Krasner said Wednesday.
Prosecutors said Abulmalik helped his stepson leave the city. He is not accused of participating in the homicide.
The teens will face charges of murder, robbery, criminal conspiracy, illegal possession of a firearm, and related offenses, Krasner said.
He suggested that the investigation could involve others, describing the charges against the two teenagers and Abdulmalik as “a smaller part of a bigger picture.”
“I am not telling you that these are the only people involved,” Krasner said during a news conference Wednesday. “I’m not telling you that this investigation is over or that we have all the answers yet.”
Philadelphia police have said Schmidt was walking home when two masked people approached him. During what investigators say was an attempted robbery, one of the suspects — whom Krasner identified as Smith — shot Schmidt.
Surveillance camera footage shows that one suspect took Schmidt’s phone, prosecutors said Wednesday, then rifled through his pockets before knocking him to the ground.
Additional footage later shows Schmidt walking behind the suspects, before one throws a phone down the block and the other fires a bullet into Schmidt’s chest.
Krasner declined to say whether the gun used to kill Schmidt had been recovered.
Investigators say surveillance cameras captured the suspects before and after the shooting. One was wearing a gray hooded sweatshirt with a hand-drawn “KONFUSED” logo and a skull-and-crossbones sketched in black marker on the front, according to the footage. After the shooting, police said, both suspects fled wearing white T-shirts.
Philadelphia police and the U.S. Marshals Service Fugitive Task Force are searching for the remaining teenager. Both agencies have offered rewards for information leading to the arrests of both teens. Krasner said Smith has ties to Philadelphia’s Point Breeze neighborhood and Delaware.
Anyone with information may contact the U.S. Marshals Service at 1-866-865-8477 or submit a tip online through its website: usmarshals.gov. Tips can also be provided to Philadelphia police at 215-686-3334 or 215-686-8477.
Lawyers for three Philadelphia men whose murder convictions were overturned in May are asking a judge to block the Pennsylvania Attorney General’s Office from intervening in the case in an effort to reverse that outcome.
Attorneys for Marc Brittingham, Jermal Shuler, and Rasheed Turner have asked Common Pleas Court Judge Jennifer Schultz to reject state prosecutors’ effort to appeal the decision that allowed the men to go free. The lawyers said the office did not have the right to intervene at this late stage.
On June 16 — three weeks after the men’s convictions were vacated — the Pennsylvania Supreme Court issued a landmark decision expanding the state’s role in Philadelphia’s post-conviction cases. But that ruling, the lawyers said, doesn’t apply retroactively.
At issue is whether the authority of the attorney general’s office extends to cases still within a window for appeal when the court issued its sweeping decision granting state prosecutors new power to step into post-conviction cases in Philadelphia.
The answer could determine how broadly the attorney general’s office can exercise its new authority.
Last week, the office sought to intervene in the case of Brittingham, Shuler and Turner, whose convictions in the 1997 killing of Essie Mae Thomas were vacated after Philadelphia prosecutors, defense attorneys, and the judge agreed that newly uncovered evidence had undermined their confidence in the jury’s verdict.
The attorney general’s office filed notices seeking to intervene and appeal 29 days after Schultz vacated the convictions, prosecutors withdrew the charges, and the men were released from prison after more than 28 years.
The move marked the office’s first effort to invoke the high court’s ruling, a sharply worded decision in which it accused Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office of repeatedly misleading courts while seeking to overturn convictions. The court ordered that, going forward, trial judges must notify the attorney general’s office whenever Philadelphia prosecutors concede post-conviction relief and give it an opportunity to review the case and potentially intervene.
The filings also underscore a complication the Supreme Court anticipated. The deputy attorney general assigned to the case, Hugh Burns, previously worked in the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office, where he opposed earlier appeals by Brittingham, Shuler, and Turner to seek DNA testing in an effort to have their convictions reversed.
Justice Christine Donohue warned that the new intervention process could create conflicts when former Philadelphia prosecutors now employed by the attorney general’s office are asked to defend convictions they previously handled.
Defense attorneys say Burns’ involvement highlights that concern. They also described the attorney general’s effort as part of “an ongoing political and ideological battle” between state prosecutors and the district attorney’s office, arguing that Brittingham, Shuler, and Turner “should not be caught in the crossfire.”
The lawyers say the Supreme Court’s order forecloses the attorney general’s attempt to intervene. In its decision, the high court wrote that state prosecutors have “the right to intervene” in any case where the district attorney’s office concedes relief “before [a] ruling on the concession” is made.
The attorney general’s office, they said in the filings, is attempting to “change the rules after the fact.”
Attorney General Dave Sunday did not respond to questions about the case.
In a statement Tuesday, he said, “I don’t think that it benefits anyone for criminal justice leaders to editorialize a lot of the work we do. We intend to litigate in the appropriate venue — the courts.“
He added: “The last thing individuals who live in the community want to hear are elected officials yelling at each other. They want to see outcomes.”
In an earlier interview with The Inquirer, Sunday said that after the high court ruling, his office would be reviewing “cases that are still going through the appellate process.”
In this case, the district attorney’s office sided with the defense, saying in its own filing that the high court’s decision created a right to intervene “before [a] ruling,” not after. While prosecutors said they would comply with the court’s directive in future cases, they argued that nothing in the decision authorizes intervention in this case.
In a statement filed in the men’s case, Burns acknowledged that the state Supreme Court had not yet issued its ruling when Schultz granted the men their freedom. Even so, he asked whether the court should temporarily vacate its order to allow the attorney general to intervene.
Burns’ filing does not challenge the evidence that prompted prosecutors to support overturning the convictions.
That evidence centered on newly disclosed information about the disciplinary history of Bennett Preston, a former assistant medical examiner whose testimony at trial helped establish Thomas’ time of death — testimony prosecutors later concluded was unreliable.
Two forensic pathologists hired by defense attorneys and prosecutors also concluded that Preston had incorrectly estimated when Thomas died. Schultz found that the new information likely would have changed the outcome of the trial had jurors heard it before issuing their verdict.
The notice, filed Wednesday in Philadelphia Common Pleas Court, seeks to insert the attorney general’s office into the case of Marc Brittingham, Rasheed Turner, and Jermal Shuler, whose convictions in a 1997 killing were vacated in May after prosecutors and defense attorneys said key evidence presented at their trial was unreliable.
But last week, the Pennsylvania Supreme Court said in a forceful ruling that District Attorney Larry Krasner’s office had displayed a pattern of misleading judges while seeking to overturn murder convictions. Moving forward, the justices said, the state attorney general’s office should be given the opportunity to review such cases before a judge can decide whether to grant relief.
The filings raise a procedural question at the heart of the new ruling. The Supreme Court’s decision requires judges to notify the attorney general and gives the office “the right to intervene in the case before ruling on the concession.” But in this case, that moment had already come and gone; the judge had accepted the district attorney’s position and overturned the convictions.
What may have allowed the attorney general back in was timing: The 30-day window to appeal the decision had not closed yet. The office filed its notice of intervention and an appeal on day 29.
Krasner, in a brief phone call Wednesday, said, “I hope the public will watch this case carefully.”
“I hope they will watch what our attorney general’s office stands for and what the district attorney’s office stands for,” he said. “Stay tuned. It’s going to tell us a lot about what’s really going on.”
Deputy Attorney General Hugh Burns did not say in court documents how or why the office believed it had authority to intervene in this case, saying only that it was taking the action in response to the state Supreme Court’s order from last week.
A spokesperson for the office declined to comment.
Wednesday’s filing seeks to reopen a case in which many of the facts underlying the district attorney’s decision to join defense lawyers in seeking to vacate the convictions remain obscured by extensive redactions in court filings.
Prosecutors and defense attorneys said the case was undermined by newly uncovered information about the work of Bennett Preston, a former assistant medical examiner whose testimony helped establish the prosecution’s timeline of Essie Mae Thomas’ death.
Thomas, 73, was found stabbed to death inside her Northwest Philadelphia home in November 1997. A jury convicted Brittingham, Turner, and Shuler the following year, after hearing testimony from a neighbor who placed them at the home and from Preston, who linked Thomas’ time of death to the witness’ account. Nearly three decades later, Krasner’s prosecutors said that the testimony of the witness and Preston was questionable, and that disciplinary action had been taken against Preston.
The details of those disciplinary actions, however, were redacted from filings.
Officials with the district attorney’s office have said that the discovery of previously unknown disciplinary action involving Preston helped prompt the reinvestigation. But prosecutors have declined to publicly detail much of that information, and court records filed in the case concealed significant portions of the evidence that led them to conclude the convictions could no longer stand.
When Common Pleas Court Judge Jennifer Schultz vacated the convictions in May, she found that the newly uncovered evidence would likely have changed the outcome of the trial. Prosecutors then withdrew the charges, ending the case and allowing the men to walk free.
Jules Epstein, a criminal law professor at Temple University, said “this is unknown territory.” Because a court order is not final for 30 days, he said, the office could have a right to appeal.
“What disturbs me is did they actually look at the merits of this decision? Or did they just knee jerk and say, ‘It’s Krasner, we’re going to challenge it’?”
Marissa Boyers Bluestine, assistant director of the Quattrone Center for the Fair Administration of Justice at the University of Pennsylvania‘s law school, said the language of the high court’s order did not appear to leave room for retroactivity.
Bluestine, who worked on Brittingham, Turner, and Shuler’s case in her previous role leading the Pennsylvania Innocence Project, said it was also curious that the attorney general’s office was involving itself without the judge’s invitation.
“They’re saying that they are intervening, not requesting permission to intervene, which is an interesting way to put it,” she said.
Two Philadelphia pastors groomed and sexually exploited two teenage boys, authorities say, paying them for explicit videos and sharing the images with each other in a scheme that stretched across years and may involve additional victims.
Isaiah Banks, 30, and Bryan Jackson, 42, are charged with sexual abuse of children, sexual exploitation of children, conspiracy, corruption of minors, and related crimes, District Attorney Larry Krasner said Tuesday.
Banks served as pastor of Second Pilgrim Baptist Church in Francisville, while Jackson served as a pastor at Garden of Prayer World’s Prayer Center in Strawberry Mansion, Krasner said.
Both men were arrested, arraigned, and released from jail after posting bail — $600,000 for Banks, and $100,000 for Jackson. Prosecutors said they had sought higher bail, but their request was denied.
Efforts to reach Banks’ attorney, Richard Kravets, were unsuccessful. No attorney for Jackson was listed in court records.
The investigation into the men began in April after police received a report that a teen had been solicited by Banks through text messages and social media to send sexually explicit videos in exchange for money or food, authorities said. The messages, they said, came to light after a witness checked the boy’s phone.
Prosecutors said Banks shared images he received with Jackson, who they said had also posed online as a female to solicit additional images and videos from the victim.
As investigators dug deeper, authorities said, they found evidence suggesting that Banks and Jackson had received sexually explicit images and videos from other victims, dating back to February 2024.
“A position of trust, when it is abused, has its criminal consequences,” Krasner said during a news conference to announce the charges.
He declined to provide additional details about the case, including the victims’ ages and genders. He said that the investigation is continuing and that releasing additional information could discourage other victims or witnesses from coming forward.
Court records, however, offer a more detailed portrait of the alleged crimes.
The victims, both boys, were 15 and 16 years old when investigators began their inquiry, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Jackson’s arrest. None of the crimes is alleged to have occurred on church grounds.
In the document, police described what they said was a yearslong pattern of communications, photographs, and videos showing Banks and Jackson cultivated transactional relationships with the boys.
Messages recovered from the men’s phones were also “littered with images and videos of nude men,” and photographs “from a barbershop and church events,” according to the affidavit.
By May, as the police investigation was underway, the tone of the messages between the two men had shifted, police said: In one message, Banks warned that one of the boys was rattled by the involvement of authorities.
During an interview with detectives, Banks acknowledged knowing the boys for more than a decade, and said Jackson was a friend, according to the affidavit. He told detectives he typically paid $50 for videos that the boys sent, the document said.
Efforts to reach officials at the church and prayer center where the two men worked were unsuccessful Tuesday.
According to Second Pilgrim Baptist Church’s website, Banks was elected senior pastor in 2017. The website describes him as a leader who is “loved genuinely by our congregation because of his passion to see our church thrive and because of his genuine care and love for all those who are a part of our church.”
Garden of Prayer World’s Prayer Center does not appear to have a website. An Instagram account appearing to belong to the church features photographs of Jackson promoting its events.
Krasner asked that anyone with additional information contact the district attorney’s office victim and witness services unit at 215-686-5709; the police department’s special victims unit at 215-685-3251; or the Philadelphia Center Against Sexual Violence hotline at 215-985-3333.
Three men who spent nearly three decades in prison for the 1997 stabbing death of a Northwest Philadelphia woman had their murder convictions overturned Tuesday after prosecutors, defense attorneys, and a judge agreed that key evidence in the case against them was unreliable.
Marc Brittingham, Rasheed Turner, and Jermal Shuler will be set free after a Common Pleas Court judge vacated their convictions and life sentences, dismantling a prosecution that relied heavily on a timeline of the victim’s death that prosecutors now say can no longer be trusted.
At trial in 1998, Bennett Preston, an assistant medical examiner, told jurors Essie Mae Thomas had likely died on the evening of Nov. 8, 1997 — a time frame prosecutors used to bolster the testimony of a sole witness who provided a direct link between the men and the killing.
But the Conviction Integrity Unit of the Philadelphia District Attorney’s Office later determined that Preston’s findings and testimony were not reliable. Experts tapped by both defense attorneys and prosecutors found that Thomas died at least a day later than Preston said she did.
Common Pleas Court Judge Jennifer Schultz said that information would likely have changed the outcome of the trial had jurors heard it at the time.
After Schultz vacated the convictions and sentences, prosecutors withdrew the charges, clearing the way for the men’s release after nearly 28 years in prison.
The case marks the first triple exoneration secured by the conviction integrity unit, which since its creation in 2018 has helped overturn a growing number of convictions tied to flawed forensic testimony, withheld evidence, and other investigative failures.
Inside the courtroom Tuesday, relatives and supporters wept quietly as Schultz delivered her ruling. One woman rocked back and forth in her seat, sobbing. Others embraced and cheered after the judge formally dismissed the case.
Family members declined to comment afterward.
The attorneys — from the Innocence Project, DLA Piper, Pennsylvania Innocence Project, and the Exoneration Project — released a joint statement after the hearing, saying the three men had “maintained their innocence while serving time for a crime they did not commit.
“The absence of physical evidence, along with new evidence discovered during the joint investigation, makes clear that this wrongful conviction should never have occurred,” the statement said.
District Attorney Larry Krasner, who addressed reporters outside the courthouse, said the men had been “robbed of a fair trial, simply put.”
He added that while the men’s convictions had been vacated, “that does not necessarily mean they are innocent. It means their convictions lacked integrity.”
Thomas was found dead inside her home. Prosecutors contended at trial that Brittingham, Turner, and Shuler went to her house to rob her and ended up killing her.
The prosecution’s case, led by Assistant District Attorney Carlos Vega, depended heavily on establishing when Thomas died. Vega could not be immediately reached for comment Tuesday.
Preston testified that her injuries and condition indicated she was likely killed on Nov. 8 — a timeline prosecutors said matched the account of a witness who placed the three men at the house that day.
But according to reviews by two forensic pathologists, Preston failed to account for several things that contradicted his conclusion, including evidence that rigor mortis may still have been developing — not disappearing — when Thomas’ body was examined. The experts concluded it was extremely unlikely Thomas died on Nov. 8.
Defense attorneys argued in court filings that without Preston’s testimony, the case against the men largely unraveled. There was little physical evidence tying them to the killing, the lawyers said, and no DNA evidence linked them to the crime scene. Preston’s testimony about the timing of her death, they said, was used to prop up prosecutors’ otherwise unstable sole eyewitness, Wadia Brown, who admitted she was high on crack cocaine on the night she said she saw the three men on Thomas’ porch around that time.
Efforts to reach Preston were unsuccessful Tuesday.
Over the years, questions emerged about Preston’s work in multiple criminal cases, prompting renewed scrutiny from defense attorneys and prosecutors. In recent years, the conviction integrity unit began reexamining cases in which his testimony played a significant role, said unit supervisor Matthew Stiegler.
Many of the specifics underlying the questions about Preston’s findings remain unclear. Court filings in the case were heavily redacted. Stiegler said Tuesday “what broke the case open” was the discovery that disciplinary action had previously been taken against Preston, but did not provide further details.
Schultz concluded that the evidence uncovered by prosecutors and defense attorneys was crucial to the outcome of the trial and warranted a new one — a prosecution the district attorney’s office said it would no longer pursue.
An undocumented West African immigrant who federal authorities say has been living in Philadelphia for more than two decades cast a ballot in the 2024 federal election — and may have voted in at least six other elections, federal authorities said.
Mahady Sacko was charged with fraudulent voting, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest. If convicted, he could face up to five years in federal prison.
Investigators said Sacko registered to vote in 2005, affirming on the registration form that he was a U.S. citizen. According to the affidavit, he went on to vote in five federal general elections and two primary elections over the next two decades.
Prosecutors charged him only with casting a ballot in the 2024 election.
Sacko had been ordered deported to Mauritania, in Northwest Africa, by an immigration judge in 2000, the affidavit said. But federal authorities never carried out the order because Sacko did not have a valid Mauritanian passport. Instead, immigration officials placed him under supervision, requiring him to regularly report to Immigration and Customs Enforcement.
The charges against him come amid political attention on allegations that people who are not U.S. citizens are voting rampantly in American elections — a frequent talking point among conservative politicians and commentators. President Donald Trump has pushed federal officials to amp up efforts to prosecute undocumented immigrants who vote.
But election experts and government investigations have consistently found that such cases are rare. Studies examining tens of millions of ballots have identified only a handful of suspected instances of such voting — a fraction of a percent of votes cast, according to research by the Brennan Center for Justice.
Only U.S. citizens may vote in federal elections. Voters must attest to their citizenship when registering, and falsely claiming citizenship can lead to criminal prosecution and deportation.
Voting records show that Sacko registered as a Democrat, though the affidavit does not specify which candidates he supported in the elections in which investigators say he voted.
A spokesperson for the U.S. Attorney’s Office said Sacko had been released on bail after an initial appearance on Thursday. She did not provide the bail amount.
Nearly two dozen residents and Quakertown taxpayers confronted the borough council at a public meeting Wednesday night, castigating its members for refusing to discipline the town’s police chief and demanding that they take action before leaving the room.
The backlash was the latest fallout from a Feb. 20 student protest against federal immigration enforcement that began as a walkout from Quakertown Community High School and ended in a confrontation between Police Chief Scott McElree and a group of teenagers. The encounter, which was captured on video, led to the arrests of several teenagers and prompted an investigation by the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office.
Wednesday’s meeting, which stretched to nearly two hours as speakers stepped to the podium one by one, laid bare a community in turmoil. Residents described fear, anger, and embarrassment that their small town had become a national flashpoint. By the end of the night, council members had made no motion and held no discussion about potential discipline for McElree.
Council President Donald Rosenberger opened the meeting by telling the audience that the nine-member council — eight men and one woman — would not consider action against McElree or comment until the Bucks County District Attorney’s Office completes its investigation.
McElree, 72, also serves as the borough’s manager, a role that includes overseeing the police department and managing public records.
A parent holds a sign outside the Quakertown School Board meeting on Feb. 26 in Quakertown, Pa. Critics who addressed the board accused the district of not doing enough to support the students arrested during last week’s ICE protest.
Outside the locked doors of the borough hall before the meeting, more than three dozen people — adults and teenagers — gathered holding handmade signs. One woman had scrawled “peaceful protester” across a flattened cardboard box in black marker. Beneath it she wrote: “Don’t put me in a chokehold, mmkay?”
Inside the crowded chamber, speakers urged council members to reckon with the national attention now focused on the town and warned that their response — or lack of one — would shape voters’ decisions in November.
Nearly every speaker who addressed the council called for McElree to be fired and criminally charged.
Joseph Rittenhouse, who said his niece was among those arrested after the clash, told council members that images of her bloodied face were now among the first results people see when they search for “Quakertown” online.
“We are national news. If you’re OK with that, I don’t think any of us are going to be OK with you sitting up there” when voters go to the polls, Rittenhouse said.
Ileana Ramos of Quakertown speaks during a council meeting as members of the community speak out against the actions of Police Chief Scott McElree on Wednesday night in Quakertown.
A handful of people who identified themselves as immigrants or women of color said the episode had shaken their sense of safety in the community, leaving them worried about how they or their children might be treated.
“It leaves me breathless as to how this is possible in America,” said Illeana Ramos. “Everyone is scared.”
Laura Foster, who leads Upper Bucks United, a civic group that has organized demonstrations since the altercation, said the council’s refusal to act had forced residents to step into a role that should belong to elected leaders.
“You are failing to act as leaders in this community,” Foster said. “I don’t need to be doing this. You should be doing this.”
Only one resident spoke in support of McElree.
Caroline DeVenuto said officers had been “sent on a fool’s errand” when they were called to respond to a gathering of teenagers, and blamed parents for allowing the situation to spiral.
“It’s time for parents to grow up and discipline their children like the rest of us,” she said.
DeVenuto also criticized news coverage of the confrontation, calling portrayals of McElree and the police department “slander and deceit.”
Residents and advocates first called for disciplinary action against McElree at a borough council meeting three days after the Feb. 20 confrontation. By Thursday, a petition seeking his resignation had drawn more than 12,000 signatures, though it was unclear how many of the signers live in the borough.
Videos recorded by bystanders and reviewed by The Inquirer show McElree grappling with several students, at one point wrapping his arm around a teenage girl’s neck before taking her to the ground. McElree, who was not in uniform at the time, left the scene bleeding, the videos showed.
Five teenagers were charged with aggravated assault, a felony, and related offenses. They are on house arrest with ankle monitors, their attorneys said.
In the affidavit of probable cause for the arrest of one of the teenagers, officers wrote that McElree had been attempting to take a student into custody when the encounter escalated. A teenage boy struck him in the ear, the affidavit said, and others hit him in the shoulder and ribs.
The document does not mention a chokehold.
According to the affidavit, McElree sought medical treatment for undisclosed injuries. More than a week later, he began a workers’ compensation leave, the borough’s attorney said.
At least three defense attorneys have asked the Pennsylvania attorney general to assume control of both the investigation and the prosecution, and to dismiss the charges.
In an email last week, lawyer Ed Angelo wrote that the affidavit “rendered only allegations that were damning to the children, but left out the assaultive behavior of the chief of police — behavior the children fought to protect themselves from.” He called the prosecution “an obvious and unacceptable conflict of interest.”
On Friday, the attorney general’s office declined to intervene, saying in an email that “it would be inappropriate for our office to engage” in the investigation or the case.
