A former Bensalem resident who spent two years in state prison for abusing his infant son is now charged with the boy’s murder after police say complications from the injuries he inflicted more than a decade ago caused the boy’s death.
Kyle Hinkle, 38, who now lives in Allentown, was charged Monday with third-degree murder in the death of his son, Leonardo, who was 11 when he died in August 2024.
After the child’s death was ruled a homicide earlier this year, investigators in Bucks County spent months gathering medical records and other evidence to link it to the injuries he received as an infant.
Hinkle remained in custody, in lieu of 10% of $2 million bail. There was no indication he had hired an attorney.
Investigators first learned of the abuse in October 2012, when the boy was taken to Jefferson Torresdale Hospital with severe head injuries, according to the affidavit of probable cause for Hinkle’s arrest.
Doctors there determined the injuries had been intentionally inflicted to the then-3-month-old, and a CAT scan revealed signs of similar, older injuries that were still healing, the affidavit said.
The boy’s grandmother told detectives that on an earlier occasion, she had seen bruises on the child’s arm that matched a necklace Hinkle used to wear, indicating he may have struck the boy with it.
In an interview with detectives, Hinkle admitted he shook the baby vigorously without supporting his head out of frustration because he would not stop crying.
The injuries left the child wheelchair-bound, nonverbal, and reliant on a feeding tube, according to prosecutors.
Hinkle pleaded guilty to aggravated assault and endangering the welfare of a child in 2013. He served two years in state prison, followed by three years of probation, court records show.
In the intervening years, the boy and his mother moved to Oliver, Fayette County, southeast of Pittsburgh.
When the child died in 2024, the Fayette County coroner ruled his death a homicide, saying, in a statement, that complications from living with Shaken Baby Syndrome directly led to his death.
A woman who was incarcerated at Philadelphia’s Federal Detention Center has sued a correctional officer who she says raped her while she was isolated in a cell and under suicide watch.
The lawsuit, filed this week in federal court in Philadelphia, alleges that Michael Jefferson unlocked the woman’s cell early on July 6, 2024, as she slept. She awoke, the lawsuit said, as Jefferson pinned her down and sexually assaulted her while she pleaded for him to stop.
The woman, identified in the lawsuit only as Jane Doe, is also suing the United States, contending that the Bureau of Prisons failed to protect her from Jefferson’s abuse. Another officer was also either absent from his post or ignored signs of the assault, the lawsuit said.
Jefferson was charged earlier this year with crimes including aggravated sexual abuse and deprivation of rights under color of law. That case is scheduled for trial in January.
He has pleaded not guilty. His attorney, Lonny Fish, did not immediately respond to a phone call Tuesday afternoon.
Jaehyun Oh, a lawyer for the woman, called the assault “a senseless and gruesome rape at the hands of a federal officer who was entrusted with safeguarding and protecting her.”
After the assault, the lawsuit said, a medical exam showed that the woman suffered from injuries and bruising that confirmed a sexual assault and indicated “the violence of the rape.”
In the suicide-watch cell, the woman should have been under increased supervision, Oh said, because of her “highly vulnerable state, psychologically.” Since the attack, the woman has suffered from flashbacks and was diagnosed with major depressive disorder, the filing said.
“We are hoping this case sheds light not just on the rape itself, but the fact that the United States needs to do better and can do better for women in its custody,” Oh said.
In a letter responding to the lawsuit’s claims, the Bureau of Prisons “unilaterally denied” the woman’s claims, according to the lawsuit.
Two Camden men were convicted of murder and related crimes Monday in the shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Mendez at the airport in 2023.
Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 20, who fired the fatal shots, was found guilty of first-degree murder. Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, 23, was convicted of second-degree murder because he took part in the car theft that gave rise to the fatal shooting.
Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, left, 20, and Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, 23.
About an hour after the jury returned its verdict, both men were sentenced to life in prison without parole.
Mendez, 50, was killed after he and his partner, Raul Ortiz, tried to stop a car theft in progress in garage D at the Philadelphia International Airport. As they approached a Dodge Charger, Martinez-Fernandez opened fire as he crouched beneath the steering wheel, prosecutors said. Mendez was struck four times in the torso. Ortiz was struck once in the arm and survived his injuries.
Officer Raul Ortiz, 60, approaches the entrance as fellow Philadelphia police officers stand and salute for his release from the Thomas Jefferson University Hospital on Oct. 14, 2023.
Prosecutors said Martinez-Fernandez also unintentionally shot one of his accomplices, Jesus Madera Duran, 18, who later died at a nearby hospital. The men dropped him there during a frantic escape that eventually led them to a central New Jersey warehouse where prosecutors said they burned their getaway vehicle.
Martinez-Fernandez was also found guilty of killing Duran, in addition to nearly all related charges. Meanwhile, Pena-Fernandez was found not guilty for a handful of other offenses, including third-degree murder.
Throughout nearly a week of testimony, prosecutors argued that both men were responsible for the death of Mendez, a father of two and a 22-year veteran of the police force.
For Mendez’s widow, Alex Carrero, and the couple’s daughter, Mia, the verdict capped what they described as a two-year nightmare.
“No 19-year-old should have to pick the color of her dad’s casket,” Mia Carrero said as she addressed the judge before her father’s killers were sentenced. She wore Mendez’s police badge pinned to her sweater.
Later, she appeared outside the courthouse with her mother alongside District Attorney Larry Krasner, Police Commissioner Kevin Bethel, and other high-ranking officials.
“He was the love of my life, my soulmate,” Alex Carrero said, breaking into tears. “I have to live the rest of my life without him.”
Bethel thanked prosecutors and the jury, and told Mendez’s family their pain was “just a chapter, but it may never go away.”
“He gave his life for the safety of this city,” Bethel said of Mendez. “We will continue to carry that charge forward.”
Krasner said the sentences reflected the gravity of “a truly horrific crime.” He commended prosecutors for weathering a prolonged jury deliberation — one that lasted four days as two jurors were dismissed; one for a medical emergency and another for reasons that were not publicly disclosed.
Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope leaves Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice during break in the first day of trial for defendant in shooting death of Philadelphia Police Officer Richard Mendez.
Assistant District Attorney Cydney Pope’s case included cell tower data, surveillance footage, recovered DNA, and witnesses, including an accomplice to the crime who testified and implicated the two men. Taken together, Pope said, the evidence was compelling and linked the two men to the crime and its multistate scene.
“This is something that truly never had to happen,” Pope said before sentencing. Instead of pulling the trigger, she said, Martinez-Fernandez could have surrendered to Mendez and faced far more lenient consequences.
When asked if he would like to speak before the ruling, Martinez-Fernandez declined. Pena-Fernandez, barely audible, said: “I wish the best for everybody.”
Defense attorneys maintained that Pope did not prove that their clients were at the scene of the shooting. And they told jurors they should not trust prosecutors’ star witness, a man who joined in the airport theft and who pleaded guilty to lesser charges in exchange for his testimony.
Robert Gamburg, Pena-Fernandez’s attorney, said he planned to appeal the verdict.
“Of course we’re disappointed with the verdict,” Gamburg told reporters. “However, there are substantial issues which will be raised eventually on appeal.”
They sat through the presentation of evidence that included life-size mannequins of Mendez, Ortiz, and the injured accomplice, Jesus Herman Madera Duran, all with markings noting where prosecutors said 9mm bullets tore through their bodies.
Prosecutors recreated the crime scene by playing video taken by drone cameras that depicted the maze of vehicles in the concrete parking area where the shooting place. They also offered testimony from two witnesses — weary travelers who were making their way to their cars — to recount the burst of gunfire, followed by the sound of squealing tires as the men peeled out of the garage, knocking down the security gate in the process.
Barriers are set up to prevent parking in a section of Philadelphia International Airport Terminal D parking garage on Nov. 9 ahead of a trial for two men charged with killing Police Officer Richard Mendez and wounding Officer Raul Ortiz during a 2023 attempted car theft.
Prosecutors also played an audio recording of Ortiz screaming into his radio, “Officer down!” and saying that he, too, had been struck and could no longer feel his arm.
“I’m gonna faint,” he said, “I’m losing feeling.”
“They shot Rich,” he repeated throughout the call, his voice wavering in disbelief.
Martinez-Fernandez and Pena-Fernandez declined to testify when asked by Common Pleas Court Judge Giovanni O. Campbell whether they would like to do so. And the defense presented no witnesses of testimony.
But on cross-examination of witnesses called by prosecutors, their attorneys, Gamburg and Earl G. Kauffman, made clear that those who testified had heard — but not seen — the crime.
And Gamburg argued that his client was improperly charged with second-degree murder, a crime committed during the commission of another felony. In this case, he said, the attempted car theft was not a forceful or violent crime and should not have given rise to the more serious charge.
Gamburg told the jury Pena-Fernandez did not go out that night with the intent to kill a police officer, did not fire a weapon, and had not known that Martinez-Fernandez was carrying a gun.
The trial was also marked by jury issues that left the courtroom on edge as deliberations stretched into Monday morning.
The panel’s work was almost immediately derailed Wednesday afternoon when a juror had a medical emergency and was carried out on a stretcher. Campbell called in an alternate juror and ordered that deliberations begin anew.
Jurors appeared to be making progress Thursday as they repeatedly asked to review pieces of evidence. But Campbell later abruptly called jurors into court and told them they must approach the case with “courtesy and respect.”
No resolution came Friday, either. After nearly a full day of silence from jurors, Campbell announced that a second juror had been dismissed.
He did not explain why. And again, he ordered deliberations to start anew.
On Monday, Pope, the prosecutor, praised the jury for its diligence.
“This was a nuanced verdict,” she said. “They didn’t just go down the line and say ‘You’re guilty of all these charges.’ They went through and took their time, did the work.”
A 17-year-old in Mays Landing, N.J., was charged with the murder of his mother, 49-year-old Julissa Serrano, on Saturday, the Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office said in a statement.
Prosecutors said the Hamilton Township Police Department received a 911 call on Saturday evening about a young man with a knife at Meadowbrook Condos in Mays Landing. When officers arrived, they found Serrano with multiple stab wounds. She died from her injuries after being transported to a nearby medical center, the prosecutor’s office said, and her cause of death is pending an autopsy.
Officials did not release the name or any other details about the 17-year-old. He was charged with murder, possession of a weapon for unlawful purpose, and unlawful possession of a weapon, the prosecutor’s statement said. He is now in custody at the Harborfields Atlantic Youth Center.
Attempts to reach Serrano’s relatives and next-door neighbors were not immediately successful.
The Atlantic County Prosecutor’s Office Major Crimes Unit and the Hamilton Township Police Department are leading the investigation, and ask that anyone with information about Serrano’s death call the Major Crimes Unit at 609-909-7666.
The former business manager of St. Matthias Catholic Church in Bala Cynwyd has been charged with theft of more than $1.1 million from the church, Montgomery County District Attorney Kevin R. Steele announced Friday.
Sean Sweeney, 60, of Mount Pleasant, S.C., served as the church’s business manager from 2017 until his firing in 2024, Steele said.
Investigators found that from 2018 through 2024, Sweeney was responsible for providing the church’s payroll records processing company, PrimePay, with records for who should be paid and how much. PrimePay paid $1,134,906.35 by direct deposit into bank accounts owned and controlled by Sweeney, Steele said.
Bank records show that the money Sweeney received was used for his personal expenses, including educational tuition, vehicle-related payments, and vacation costs, Steele said.
Sweeney surrendered to Montgomery County detectives on Thursday and was arraigned by District Judge Todd N. Barnes, who set bail at $100,000 unsecured, Steele said.
Sweeney was required to surrender his passport, was ordered not to have contact with employees connected to the case, and is not allowed at or near St. Matthias Church, Steele said.
Sweeney could not be reached for comment Friday night.
In December 2024, the Archdiocese of Philadelphia Office of Investigations referred the case to the Montgomery County District Attorney’s Office, Steele said.
Kenneth A. Gavin, a spokesperson for the archdiocese, said in a statement Friday night: “These charges are serious and disturbing to all of us. The Archdiocese and the parish will continue to cooperate with law enforcement as the criminal matter enters its next phase. The Archdiocese is committed to seeking full restitution to the parish.”
According to the affidavit of probable cause, a member of the church’s finance council who had been a school classmate of Sweeney’s warned a church official in May 2024 “that Sweeney had personal finance issues and was borrowing money from family members and not paying them back.”
Spokespersons for U.S. Rep. Chrissy Houlahan, a Chester County Democrat, and Rep. Chris Deluzio, a Western Pennsylvania Democrat, reported that the legislators’ district offices had been targeted with bomb threats on Friday.
All six are military veterans or members of the intelligence community.
Early Friday evening, a spokesperson for Houlahan posted on the representative’s X account that her district office in West Chester was the target of a bomb threat.
“Thankfully, the staff there as well as the office in Washington, D.C. are safe. We are grateful for our local law enforcement agencies who reacted quickly and are investigating,” the post said.
A spokesperson for Deluzio posted on X late Friday afternoon that the representative’s district offices were targeted with bomb threats.
In response to the video, Trump went after the six congressional Democrats in a string of posts on Truth Social Thursday.
Houlahan lamented at a Friday news conference in Washington that “not a single” Republican in Congress “has reached out to me, either publicly or privately” since Trump’s posts.
The former head of human resources and diversity initiatives for the Philadelphia Art Museum was charged with theft earlier this year. The police said she racked up more than $58,000 in personal expenses on a company credit card, then failed to pay back the funds, court records show.
Latasha Harling, 43, was arrested in July and charged with theft by unlawful taking, theft by deception, and related crimes about six months after she quietly resigned from her job as the chief people and diversity officer for the museum.
The charges against Harling — which had not previously been reported or made public by the museum — are the latest chapter in a six-week stretch of turbulence for the prominent institution, and raise new questions about the financial oversight and controls of its senior executives.
On Nov. 4, the museum fired its director and CEO, Sasha Suda, after an investigation by an outside law firm flagged the handling of her compensation. Suda filed a lawsuit on Nov. 10 against her former employer claiming that she was the victim of a “small cabal” from the board that commissioned a “sham investigation” as a “pretext” for her “unlawful dismissal.”
The Art Museum on Thursday responded to the lawsuit in Philadelphia Court of Common Pleas with a petition saying Suda was dismissed after an investigation determined that she “misappropriated funds from the museum and lied to cover up her theft.” Her lawyer, Luke Nikas of Quinn Emanuel Urquhart & Sullivan, called the museum’s accusations false.
“These are the same recycled allegations from the sham investigation that the museum manufactured as a pretext for Suda’s wrongful termination,” he said.
A sign shows the recent rebranding of the Philadelphia Art Museum.
Harling declined to comment on the charges filed against her Friday, as did her lawyers at the Defender Association. A spokesperson for the Philadelphia Art Museum also declined to comment on the matter.
Harling was hired by the museum as a senior member of its executive staff in November 2023, according to her LinkedIn profile. In that role, she oversaw human resources for the museum, implemented policies to promote diversity, equity, and inclusion, and managed budgetary responsibilities, among other duties, per her profile.
As part of her job, Harling had access to a corporate credit card for business-related expenses, according to the affidavit of probable cause for her arrest.
In January 2025, museum staff noticed that Harling’s December credit card statement contained “several large, and apparently personal expenses,” the affidavit said.
The museum’s chief financial officer conducted an audit and found that, over the course of Harling’s tenure, she charged $58,885.98 in personal expenses to the company’s credit card, the document said. She had not filed an expense report since July 2024, according to the affidavit.
Museum officials confronted Harling about the charges in January, the filing said, and proposed that she repay $32,565.42. She resigned from her role soon after “without resolution,” according to the affidavit.
The museum continued to negotiate with Harling, and in February, she signed a promissory note agreeing to pay back $19,380.21 over the course of three months that spring, the record said.
But in April, per the filing, a lawyer for the museum contacted the police to say that two months had passed and Harling had not repaid any of the funds. They said that, according to their agreement, she should have paid back about $13,000 by then.
After the museum provided investigators with copies of their emails with Harling, her expenses, and its travel and expense policy, prosecutors agreed to charge her with theft.
The case remains ongoing in Philadelphia’s criminal court.
Staff writer Jillian Kramer contributed to this article.
Yobranny Martinez-Fernandez, 20, and Hendrick Pena-Fernandez, 23, face life in prison without parole if they are convicted of first- and second-degree murder, respectively, in addition to attempted murder, robbery and a slew of related charges.
Last week a jury sat through prosecutors’ presentation of evidence, which included recovered DNA and cell phone tower data as well as testimony from a man who participated in the theft and identified his former accomplices before a crowded courtroom.
Defense attorneys did not put any witnesses on the stand, rebuffing prosecutors during opening and closing arguments.
But on Wednesday, about an hour after Common Pleas Judge Giovanni O. Campbell sent the jury to deliberate, confusion began to seep into the trial.
A juror suffered a medical emergency and was removed from court on a stretcher. Campbell ordered that he be replaced by an alternate juror and that deliberations begin anew.
On Thursday, jurors came back to the judge with a handful of questions, asking to see copies of DNA evidence, photographs from the scene, and the outfits Mendez and his partner wore that evening.
They also wanted to see the letters exchanged between prosecutors and their star witness, who had pleaded guilty to a lesser murder charge days before the trial got underway.
As the day wore on, Campbell brought jurors back into the courtroom. There would be no verdict, however.
For unknown reasons, the judge instead suggested that the jury operate with “courtesy and respect,” and that they approach deliberations with an “open mind.”
“We recognize it’s not easy,” Campbell said of the process.
Deliberations resumed Friday morning; courtroom observers would not see the jury until Campbell called them back into court around 4 p.m.
Campbell, without citing a reason, said a second juror had been removed. He told the court “it had nothing to do with her views on the case.”
And again, the jury was told to restart deliberations from the beginning.
Campbell dismissed the jury at 5:40 p.m. and told them to return on Monday.
The final defendant in a sweeping corruption probe that uncovered a series of bribes being lavished upon an Amtrak manager during a renovation project at 30th Street Station was sentenced Friday to two months in prison.
Khaled Dallo was an employee at an Illinois-based masonry firm and helped provide a series of extravagant gifts to the Philadelphia-based project manager, Ajith Bhaskaran, including vacations to India and Ecuador, a Tourneau watch, expensive dinners in Center City, a German shepherd puppy, and cash.
In all, prosecutors said, Dallo and supervisors at his company, Mark 1 Restoration, provided Bhaskaran with nearly $330,000 in bribes, and Bhaskaran in turn helped approve tens of millions of dollars in expenses for Mark 1, nearly doubling the cost of restoring the train station’s historic facade.
Dallo, 69, said in court that he was sorry for his misconduct, and that it stood in contrast with how he has tried to live the rest of his life.
“I knew it was wrong,” he said, “and chose to do it anyway.”
His sentencing represents the final chapter in a saga that saw federal prosecutors indict six people connected to the restoration project — four from Mark 1, and two from another contractor.
All of the Mark 1 employees have since been sentenced to prison. Dallo received the shortest term, with prosecutors crediting him for being the first person to plead guilty and saying he served a more subordinate role in the scheme.
Bhaskaran, the Amtrak manager, was charged with unrelated wire fraud, but died of heart failure in 2019.
The renovation project Bhaskaran oversaw at 30th Street was announced in 2015, when the railroad agency signed a $58 million contract with Mark 1 to repair and clean the station’s limestone facade.
Bhaskaran controlled the project’s purse strings, and prosecutors said Mark 1 employees quickly came to realize their conditions on the job site could be improved if he was happy.
About a year into the project, prosecutors said, Bhaskaran began requesting gifts, despite Amtrak rules that bar employees from receiving them. Executives at Mark 1 knew Bhaskaran’s requests were improper, prosecutors said, but went on to fulfill them anyway — in part because Bhaskaran had the ability to approve additional business on the project.
Dallo was among the Mark 1 employees who provided Bhaskaran with dinners at steakhouses, limousine rides, a $5,600 watch, the paid vacations, and a nearly $5,000 check to an Illinois breeder of German shepherds.
Over that same time frame, Mark 1 continued to receive additional funding for its work at 30th Street. In total, prosecutors said, Bhaskaran helped secure the company $52 million in new contracts, about $2 million of which was considered fraudulent overbilling.
The scheme began to fall apart in 2018, when an anonymous tipster sent a letter to Amtrak’s inspector general about Bhaskaran’s suspicious behavior. That led to an investigation involving the FBI and Amtrak’s inspector general.
Dallo acknowledged his wrongdoing about a year later, as soon asfederal agents confronted him, prosecutors said.
Still, U.S. District Wendy Beetlestone told Dallo that his actions were not a onetime lapse in judgment, but a “considered, yearslong” effort that led to taxpayer money being spent on graft.
A 20-year-old woman and a 19-year-old man who were critically wounded in a shooting Thursday night were dropped off by a private vehicle at Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, police said.
The shooting “likely” happened on the 2100 block of South Norwood Street in South Philadelphia, where 14 spent shell casings were found, said Chief Inspector Scott Small.
However, the victims have been unable to speak and no witnesses had yet been located to say for certain where the two people were shot, Small said.
Shortly before 8:30 p.m., police responded to a report of gunshots in the area of 21st and Jackson Streets and found the shooting scene nearby on the 2100 block of South Norwood Street, Small said.
Police investigating shooting evidence on the 2100 block of South Norwood Street in Philadelphia on Thursday.
A short time later, police were notified that two shooting victims were taken by private vehicle to Children’s Hospital of Philadelphia, Small said. The vehicle did not remain at the hospital.
There were no other shooting incidents reported to police around the time the victims were dropped off at the hospital, Small said.
Police also did not find blood evidence on Norwood Street, adding to uncertainty about what happened, Small said.
Police were checking to see if any security cameras recorded video in the area, Small said.
