A sixth person will go to trial over the September 2022 shooting outside Roxborough High School that killed 14-year-old Nicolas Elizalde and wounded four others.
Zaakir McClendon, 20, will be tried for his alleged role in the deadly ambush, which began when five young men armed with handguns burst from an SUV and sprayed more than 60 bullets at a group of boys who had just finished junior varsity football practice.
Police said a sixth person was driving the SUV. Police arrested five people in the months after the incident but did not charge McClendon until August.
At a preliminary hearing — a court process to decide whether there is enough evidence for someone to go to trial — Judge David H. Conroy reviewed video footage and cell phone records and heard from detectives.
A painting of Nicolas Elizalde, that his mother Meredith Elizalde is bringing with her as part of a small colleciton of her sons things as she packs to start a new life in Montana, two years after Nicolas was killed in a shooting, in Aston, PA, August 15, 2024.
Citing text messages, Philadelphia Police Detective Robert Daly said the shooting happened after McClendon told another defendant in Elizalde’s killing that a Northeast High School football player had assaulted a girl he knew. The Northeast and Roxborough junior varsity teams were playing a scrimmage on the day of the shooting. Elizalde, a freshman at Walter B. Saul High School who played football for Roxborough, had nothing to do with the girl, police said.
“It’s clear to me that this defendant set this all in motion,” Conroy said of McClendon.
Stephen Grace, who was a detective on the case, said police found DNA on one of the 64 cartridge casings left at the scene among the bullet fragments and discarded football equipment.
For nearly three years, police searched for the person whose DNA was found on the 9mm casing. After police in July charged McClendon with killing a 16-year old boy, and his DNA was uploaded into a criminal database, they got a match, Grace said.
Two men have already pleaded guilty and been sentenced to decades in prison for their involvement in the shooting. Three others will soon go to trial — and now, McClendon is likely to join them.
“The goal now is to link these cases and try these defendants together,” said Assistant District Attorney Ashley Toczylowski.
Lee Maniatis, 58, was one of several senior employees of Mark 1 Restoration who participated in the crimes. But prosecutors said he played a central role, influencing the Amtrak project manager, Ajith Bhaskaran, to sign off on a series of additional contracts worth tens of millions of dollars.
His prison term will be followed by three years of supervised release. Maniatis has already paid a $278,000 restitution fee, though he will also be required to contribute to a restitution fund of more than $2 million alongside his former associates.
In all, Maniatis and his colleagues funneled gifts worth more than $323,000 to Bhaskaran between 2016 and 2019, buying him luxury wristwatches and cigars, pricey vacations to India and the Galápagos Islands, Bruno Mars concert tickets, lavish dinners in Center City, and rides in limousines.
In exchange, Bhaskaran helped secure tens of millions of dollars in extra government-funded work for Mark 1 Restoration, ultimately doubling the cost of what began as a $58 million project to renovate the historic train station’s limestone facade.
While the firm did legitimate work on the property, most of the gifts were effectively subsidized by the government because Mark 1 falsely inflated its invoices by $2 million to cover the bribes. And Amtrak explicitly prohibits firms from offering gifts in exchange for favorable contracts.
Prosecutors had ample evidence linking Maniatis to the bribes. Around the time of a January 2017 dinner between Maniatis, a colleague, and Bhaskaran, the Amtrak employee was considering whether to authorize an additional $13.4 million work order for the firm. Maniatis, prosecutors said, gave Bhaskaran a Tourneau worth more than $5,000 during that meeting.
Bhaskaran approved the contract days later, and “[d]inner was worth it,” Maniatis texted an associate. Later he texted his boss: “$ ding.”
Maniatis, accompanied by his wife, appeared in federal court in Philadelphia Thursday and teared up as he read a statement to U.S. District Judge Wendy Beetlestone.
“I’m completely ashamed,” he said. “I was sick about it then, I’m sick about it now.”
The judge said the former executive’s remorse was palpable. But she said Maniatis had a choice to go to authorities over those three years — and didn’t.
“Only when federal agents raided his home” in 2019 did Maniatis admit to his wrongdoing, Beetlestone said.
“He could have resigned,” she continued. “He could have reported it to the FBI.”
Theodore T. Poulos, one of Maniatis’ defense attorneys, said he still recalls the day after that raid, when the former executive told the lawyer he’d “ruined his life.”
Poulos said Maniatis had been a victim of “misguided loyalty” to Mark 1’s owner and president, Marak Snedden, who pleaded guilty to charges of conspiracy to commit bribery and making a false claim in the scheme.
Still, U.S. Attorney Jason Grenell said, Maniatis “made a choice” to siphon public taxpayer money to “line people’s pockets.”
The attorney commended Maniatis for being the first defendant in the case to plead guilty for his crimes, swiftly admitting his guilt while his coconspirators fended off the government’s allegations in court, Grenell said.
Maniatis is not the first Mark 1 employee to face prosecution.
Early this month, Snedden, was sentenced in Beetlestone’s courtroom to 7½ years in prison. The admission made Snedden the sixth person involved to face consequences for the scheme.
Bhaskaran had been charged with unrelated wire fraud in 2019 but died of heart failure a year later.
Court documents show Bhaskaran had outsized power to approve work on behalf of the transit agency — and that his signature on “substantially overbilled” work routinely corresponded with sumptuous treatment from Maniatis and Mark 1 employees.
One such instance came in December 2017, when Bhaskaran authorized an additional $5.6 million in work for the firm. That same month, court records show, Maniatis paid $9,500 for him to visit India with a relative.
Maniatis emailed Bhaskaran tickets the following year priced at $766 for a New Year’s Eve party at Stratus, a rooftop lounge at Kimpton Hotel Monaco — a purchase investigators said Maniatis had made on his own credit card.
And when Bhaskaran decided that the Tourneau watch was not to his liking, Maniatis was ready to return it and purchase Bhaskaran an even more expensive timepiece, spending $11,294.
Beetlestone denied Poulos’ request that Maniatis be allowed to spend the entirety of his sentence on probation. He will serve his term at a prison in Lewisburg, Pa.
“Lack of fortitude is not an excuse for criminal conduct,” Beetlestone said.
Staff writer Chris Palmer contributed to this article.
A sports betting scandal involving Portland Trail Blazers head coach Chauncey Billups and Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier has roiled the NBA and threatens to undermine the $13 billion sports betting industry.
Billups and Rozier are among 34 people across 11 states charged in connection with two separate schemes — defrauding sports gamblers and a rigged poker game run in connection with New York City Mafia families.
Among those said to be involved was Shane Hennen, 40, a professional gambler originally from the Pittsburgh suburbs who allegedly handed off cash to his coconspirators in Philadelphia.
Former Cleveland Cavaliers player-turned-coach Damon Jones was also arrested for allegedly selling inside information on injuries and participating in the illegal poker scheme.
“This is the insider trading scandal for the NBA,” FBI Director Kash Patel said during a news conference Thursday announcing the charges, which include wire fraud conspiracy, money laundering conspiracy, and conspiracies to commit extortion and robbery.
Officials accuse Rozier and others of altering their performance to get big payouts
Miami Heat guard Terry Rozier.
In the sports betting case, Rozier and others are accused of leaving games early or altering their performance to make hundreds of thousands of dollars on prop bets, defrauding both sportsbooks and other legitimate gamblers.
In one example, provided by New York Police Commissioner Jessica Tisch, Rozier, then with the Charlotte Hornets, allegedly told his coconspirators he was planning to exit a 2023 game early due to a supposed injury.
“Using that information, members of the group placed more than $200,000 in wagers on his under statistics,” Tisch said. “Rozier exited the game after just nine minutes, and those bets paid out, generating tens of thousands of dollars in profit.”
“The proceeds were later delivered to his home, where the group counted their cash,” Tisch added.
Joseph Nocella Jr., the U.S. attorney for the Eastern District of New York, described it as “one of the most brazen sports corruption schemes since online sports betting became widely legalized in the U.S.”
Rozier’s lawyer, Jim Trusty, told CNN in a statement his client “looks forward to winning this fight.”
The accusations mirror the actions that led the NBA to ban former Toronto Raptors forward Jontay Porter from the league for life after its investigation revealed he leaked “confidential information to sports bettors” to win under bets. Porter later pleaded guilty to charges that he faked injuries or illnesses to leave games early.
The NBA had investigated Rozier and announced in January it “did not find a violation of NBA rules.” The league said Thursday it takes the new allegations “with the utmost seriousness.”
Nocella said the indictment also details the actions of unnamed players on teams that include the Trail Blazers and the Los Angeles Lakers. The indictment remained sealed online Thursday.
Two of the unnamed coconspirators were from Pennsylvania, according to the indictment.
Cash was handed off in Philly, officials said
Philadelphia skyline as seen from Lancaster Avenue.
Prosecutors allege Rozier colluded with Hennen, who figures prominently in the most recent indictment — and in an earlier gambling probe involving Temple University’s basketball team, which led to his arrest in January.
Hennen, known as “Sugar” in gambling circles, used nonpublic information that he obtained through his NBA contacts to facilitate a series of fraudulent bets over the last three years, according to one of the complaints unsealed Thursday. In one instance, he allegedly used Philadelphia as a meeting point to dole out the ill-gotten proceeds to other bettors.
On March 28, 2023, Mississippi-based sports handicapper Marves Fairley traveled to Philadelphia to meet Hennen to collect proceeds from wagers the duo had placed on one of Rozier’s games earlier that month, federal authorities contend.
Rozier had, according to the complaint, planned to “exit prematurely” from the March 23 matchup between the Hornets and the New Orleans Pelicans. Rozier played the first nine minutes of the game but then withdrew, citing a foot issue.
Authorities say the scheme involved other men. De’Niro “Peyso” Laster, a former college linebacker, allegedly met with Fairley in Philadelphia on March 28 to collect tens of thousands of dollars in cash based on more fraudulent winnings linked to the same game.
The suit alleges that Rozier paid for the costs of Laster’s travel to the city, and that Fairley and Laster then drove from Philadelphia to North Carolina to meet with the player at his home and count their winnings.
On March 29, the day after prosecutors allege they met up in the city, Hennen posted a photo of himself and Fairley sitting courtside at a Sixers game.
Hennen also appears to be linked to a point-shaving scheme involving former Temple University basketball player Hysier Miller, in what is likely a related investigation, according to reports by Sports Illustrated and ESPN.
Earlier this year, the NCAA revealed it was investigating unusual bets placed around a March 7, 2024, game between Temple and Alabama-Birmingham. An ESPN report linked that game to Hennen, who was arrested by federal authorities in January while attempting to board a flight to Panama.
Damon Jones appears to have sold inside info on LeBron James while a coach for the Lakers
Damon Jones (left), seen here with LeBron James in July 2010. The two were teammates on the Cleveland Cavaliers.
Jones, who served as an unofficial assistant coach with the Los Angeles Lakers during the 2022-23 season, is accused of tipping off the team’s decision to rest a “prominent NBA player” ahead of a matchup with the Milwaukee Bucks on Feb. 9, 2023.
The unnamed player appears to be LeBron James, who sat out that game due to a sore left ankle. James had played with Jones on the Cleveland Cavaliers, but there is no indication the NBA superstar was aware of the illegal betting scheme.
“Get a big bet on Milwaukee tonight before the information is out!” Jones texted, according to the indictment.
According to the indictment, Jones leaked inside information he had to coconspirators multiple times during the season, including before a January 2024 game against the Oklahoma City Thunder.
Billups accused of teaming with mob figures for illegal poker game
Chauncey Billups was used to make the illegal poker games seem fair, officials said.
In a second case, Billups is charged with participating in a nationwide scheme involving New York City Mafia figures to rig illegal poker games.
Officials said members of the Bonanno, Gambino, and Genovese crime families rigged the poker contests in their favor, cheating players out of millions of dollars and resorting to violence when victims wouldn’t pay up.
Tisch said Billups’ presence at the games was meant to lull victims into thinking it was a legitimate game, making them think “they were sitting at a fair table.” Officials said he was aware and in on the scam.
Losses totaled more than $7 million, with one victim losing nearly $2 million, Tisch said.
Hennen also figured prominently in the second case. According to the indictment, he provided the “cheating technology” for the illegal poker scheme in exchange for a portion of the proceeds.
“Bringing four of the five families together in a single indictment is extraordinarily rare,” Tisch said. “It reflects how deep and how far this investigation reached and the skill and the persistence it took to get here.”
A month after Keon King was charged with breaking into his ex-girlfriend’s home and attempting to strangle her, police say, his violence escalated: In January, he returned to her home with a gun, then kidnapped and assaulted her.
A warrant for his arrest was issued days later.
In the weeks that followed, King twice appeared in Philadelphia court and stood before a judge in the initial strangulation case. But no one in the courtroom seemed to know he was wanted for kidnapping.
So both times, King walked out.
In February, despite the warrant for King’s arrest, prosecutors — seemingly unaware that police said he had recently attacked their key witness — withdrew the burglary and strangulation case when the victim failed to appear in court.
Police did not go to either hearing to take him into custody, and do not appear to have alerted the prosecutor about the new arrest warrant.
And King was not formally charged with the kidnapping until April, when, for reasons that are unclear, he turned himself in.
Kada Scott, 23, was abducted from outside her workplace on Oct. 4, police said.
A review of King’sprevious criminal cases raises questions about whether police and prosecutors could have been more vigilant in holding him accountable for the earlier crimes they say he committed.
City Council has since vowed to hold a hearing examining how the city’s criminal justice system handles cases of domestic violence.
But even before the charges were withdrawn, police and court records show, there were missteps.
Marian Grace Braccia, a former Philadelphia prosecutor who is a law professor at Temple University, said she found it alarming that law enforcement failed to take King into custody when he twice stood before them in court while wanted for a violent felony.
“If this is supposed to be a collaborative effort — if there is a shared mission of public safety and victim advocacy — it sounds like everyone dropped the ball,” she said.
Detectives and prosecutors, she said, should have been aware of the arrest warrant and had officers take him into custody.
Then, she said, prosecutors could have cited the alleged kidnapping to ask a judge to increase King’s bail and keep him behind bars.
Instead, she said, “it passed by everybody, and he came in and walked out, and slipped through the cracks of the Philadelphia legal court system.”
Philadelphia District Attorney Larry Krasner discusses the killing of Kada Scott at a news conference earlier this week.
Krasner said there is no system to automatically notify prosecutors when a defendant in one of their cases is arrested anew.
Similarly, there is no system to let police know that suspects in new cases have outstanding criminal matters, said Philadelphia Police Department spokesperson Sgt. Eric Gripp.
“Detectives are not automatically notified when a wanted subject is physically present in court on a different active case,” he said.
Krasner said the issues in the case underscore a lack of communication among law enforcement agencies that happens in part because their digital information systems are decades old. He said his office and other law enforcement agencies should work to update those systems.
“That is something that we can all improve together if we have the will and if we have the resources,” he said.
A wanted man walks free
Police said King first attacked his ex-girlfriend in early November of last year. He broke into her Strawberry Mansion home, then tried to strangle her, according to the affidavit of probable cause for his arrest.
He was taken into custody in December and charged with burglary and strangulation, and bail was set at $50,000. King immediately posted the necessary 10%, $5,000, and was released.
About a month later, police said, King returned to the woman’s home and tried to break in. When he could not gain entry, they said, he waited for her to step outside, then grabbed her by the hair and dragged her into his car. He drove for at least four miles, beating her along the way, before dropping her off in Fishtown, according to the affidavit for probable cause for his arrest.
A judge approved the warrant for King’s arrest on charges of kidnapping, strangulation, and related crimes on Jan. 19, court records show.
The Justice Juanita Kidd Stout Center for Criminal Justice in Philadelphia.
King — now wanted for a violent felony — appeared in court the following week for a preliminary hearing in the earlier burglary case, records show. But when the victim did not show up in court a second time, Municipal Court Judge Jacquelyn Frazier-Lyde ordered that the case had to proceed at the next listing. Prosecutors agreed.
King left court.
Meanwhile, police said, officers tried at least once to arrest him. On Feb. 11, Gripp said, police went to a home where they thought King might be, but he was not there.
Two weeks later, King was again in court for the burglary case — but police did not go there to arrest him. Once again, the victim did not show up, and prosecutors withdrew the charges
King walked out of court a free man.
Braccia, the Temple law professor, said the detective assigned to the case should have been aware of the hearing. When seeking to charge King for the kidnapping, she said, the detective should have pulled up King’s arrest history and noticed the ongoing case. He then could have flagged it to the prosecutor in the first case and gone to the hearing to arrest him.
At the same time, she said, the prosecutors who approved the kidnapping charges against King should have noticed the earlier case and told the prosecutor — particularly because it involved the same victim.
In April, King turned himself in to police to be charged with kidnapping, strangulation, and related crimes in connection with the January attack. Prosecutors asked for bail of $999,999, but the magisterial judge, Naomi Williams, set bail at $200,000, court records show. King posted the necessary $20,000 and was released.
The following month, after the victim again did not appear in court at two hearings, the kidnapping charges were also withdrawn.
Since prosecutors have refiled the charges, Krasner’s office said it has been back in touch with the woman and hopes she will testify. She declined to comment about King’s alleged crimes and the previous handling of the cases by police and prosecutors.
Six months later, King is back in custody, this time charged with murder. He is being held without bail.
On Thursday, a roomful of leaders from the nation’s largest and most complex school systems stood, sat, and spilled into aisles to hear Superintendent Tony B. Watlington Sr. talk about how the Philadelphia School District has pulled off “groundbreaking academic improvements” in the eighth-largest school system in the country.
“The nation’s historic biggest poor city for many decades is getting better,” Watlington said. “We are so proud to be accelerating performance, and we are going to put our foot on the gas, and our goal … is to get to the top of the food chain.”
The discussion came as part of the Council of Great City Schools’ annual conference, held this year in Philadelphia. In addition to the hometown district, the Baltimore, Detroit, and Los Angeles Unified districts were also highlighted.
Here are some takeaways from the panel that featured Watlington, Sonja Santelises of Baltimore, Nikolai Vitti of Detroit, and Alberto Carvalho of Los Angeles.
The Philadelphia story: It’s getting better
Watlington trumpeted the progress made since he arrived in Philadelphia in 2022: improvement in most metrics — fewer dropouts, better graduation rate, better student and teacher attendance, forward motion in most areas as benchmarked against big-city peers on the test known as the “Nation’s Report Card.”
“We’ve been really drilling down on fourth- and eighth-grade reading and math, and in three of these areas, we’ve seen significant improvement, besting the national average, our peer districts, and, certainly, outperforming the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania,” Watlington said.
Still, Philadelphia’s students — a diverse group, mostly from economically disadvantaged homes and mostly kids of color — have a long ways to go.
According to preliminary data recently released by the district, 25% of district students met state standards in reading and 33% in math. (Math scores have been a particular strength of late — fourth-graders’ math scores have jumped 13 percentage points in the last three years.)
“It’s ebbing and flowing, but over time we ought to see some appreciable improvement in student outcomes, and, yes, it ought to show up on some standardized assessments, even if those assessments are rife with cultural and racial bias,” Watlington said.
Despite the fact that most city students do not meet the state’s standards in literacy and numeracy, there are more than just glimmers of hope in what the district has been able to accomplish in recent years, Watlington said.
For years, Philadelphia’s performance was near the bottom of all large urban districts’. But the most recent stats from the National Assessment of Educational Progress show that the district has vaulted from near the bottom to closer to the top.
And after years of declining enrollment amid a robust charter school ecosystem, the traditional public school system added more than 1,000 students to its rolls last year. About 117,000 children are now enrolled in district schools.
How did the district make gains? Watlington cited several factors: new, standardized curriculum, professional development for teachers, supporting principals, strengthening family partnerships, and improving instruction.
“We’re not just trying to serve the middle,” Watlington said. “We’re serving all students, including students who qualify for special education services.”
Baltimore found literacy leaders in its own backyard
Funds are scarce and needs are great in Baltimore, as they are in large urban school districts across the country.
But Santelises, who has been superintendent of the district of 70,000 for nearly 10 years, wanted to focus on building leadership, even without a built-in infrastructure.
“What we did was we doubled down on leadership is not a title. Leadership is a state of being. Leadership is a focus, so that means leadership is not just who gets to sit the closest to the CEO. Leadership is not who has three letters in his or her name, but leadership is actually what is your ability to identify a problem,” Santelises said.
Empowering people in schools to see themselves as leaders worked beautifully, Santelises said. Among the strongest leaders?
“We found actually that our paraprofessionals — majority women of color, majority from low-income neighborhoods — were actually our best literacy tutors when we looked at the data,” Santelises said. “With all due respect to any companies in the room, it wasn’t the new AI technology that got the best results. It wasn’t the newest program you’re going to put on the software. It was actually the women who were closest to our young people and their communities were then viewed as leaders, and frankly got 30 to 40% greater improvement with our first and second graders than any program we purchased.”
LA super thinks 10% of schools should get 90% of district attention
Alberto Carvalho, the superintendent of the Los Angeles Unified School District, said that 90% of districts’ time should be spent on 10% of its schools — the lowest performers.
Leaders must have “the courage to say not every student shall get the same level of funding, the same level of support … they need disproportionately higher levels of funding based on equity indices.”
(Philadelphia used to have a separate learning network for its lowest performers, with higher amounts of funding and more supports. The district broke up that network in a recent reorganization.)
When he started in LAUSD in 2022, that school system, the nation’s second-largest, had 800 teaching vacancies. He reduced that number to zero quickly.
Central office staffers who met Carvalho always told him how much they loved children, he said.
“During spring break, I asked them to go love children closer to where children were,” Carvalho said. The employees who had teaching credentials were sent into schools to teach. “Yes, there are teacher shortages, but we have more of a talent-distribution problem than a talent problem, always.”
Carvalho — a former undocumented immigrant who spent 15 years as Miami’s schools leader and had accepted the New York public school chancellor’s job but reneged, he said Thursday, “because I would have killed the mayor” — suggested that incremental progress is not nearly enough.
“We’re not done, we can’t be done,” Carvalho said. “We have grade levels where reading performance is at 30, 40, 50%, and that means the vast majority of our kids are not learning and reading at grade level — the same for numeracy. Unfortunately, across our country, we often hide ugly truths about our own performance. And as they all said, ‘The first step in true educational reform is critical awareness of where we are.’”
The wife of the founder of Par Funding, a fraudulent and now-defunct Philadelphia-based lending firm, was sentenced Thursday to one day in jail and 60 days of house arrest for dodging about $1.6 million in taxes she should have paid on income derived from the scheme.
Lisa McElhone apologized for her conduct during a sentencing hearing before U.S. District Judge Mark A. Kearney, saying the spectacular implosion of her husband’s business — and the criminal prosecution of people associated with it — was the “most painful and transformative period of my entire life,” causing her to lose her home and her future, and watch her husband get sent to prison.
“It’s difficult, if not impossible, to express how overwhelming and life-altering this has been,” she said.
Prosecutors acknowledged that McElhone — the owner of an Old City nail salon — had almost nothing to do with Par’s day-to-day operations. And the crimes she was charged with paled in comparison to those of others associated with the business — particularly her husband, Joseph LaForte, who ran the cash-advance firm as a Mafia-style criminal enterprise that defrauded investors out of hundreds of millions of dollars, and resorted to loan shark-style tactics in efforts to collect on debts.
Still, Kearney said, McElhone, 46, did bear some responsibility by failing to question aspects of the life she was afforded that she should have known were too good to be true.
“These things only stop when good people … stop and say, ‘Hey, you’re asking me to go a step too far,’” he said. “That’s the only way these things stop. Because otherwise, if everyone falls in line, everyone goes to jail.”
Kearney said McElhone’s one-day prison stint would be Thursday. She will then serve a three-year term of supervised release, he said, and her 60 days of house arrest will begin in January 2026.
McElhone’s sentencing was notable as the final criminal proceeding for about a half-dozen people charged in connection with Par Funding, which prosecutors have called one of the biggest financial frauds in Pennsylvania history.
LaForte received the stiffest sentence: a 15½-year prison term that Kearney imposed earlier this year. LaForte founded Par to offer quick loans at high interest rates to borrowers deemed too risky to secure financing from traditional banks, but lied to investors about the company’s financial health to raise more money, used thuggish tactics to threaten borrowers who fell into default, and hid tens of millions of dollars from the IRS for his personal use.
Others charged included LaForte’s brother, who also received a lengthy prison term for participating in various aspects of the firm’s crimes. And earlier this week, two financial professionals, Rodney Ermel and Kenneth Bacon, were ordered to serve 2½ years and 6 months, respectively, behind bars for helping devise the fraudulent tax structures connected to the crimes.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Matthew Newcomer said it was perhaps fitting that McElhone’s penalty was the last to be imposed, given her limited connection to the business.
“But I think it does speak to the breadth and severity” of Par’s misdeeds, he said, “that even the least-culpable person is still on the hook for a $1.6 million tax loss.”
Par was founded in 2012 by LaForte, who was legally barred from selling securities because of previous felony convictions for financial crimes.
One way he got around that was to list McElhone as Par’s chief executive on official documents. Then, LaForte and others he recruited to work for him — including experienced financial professionals — ran radio ads and staged fancy solicitation events to raise more than $500 million, all as they portrayed the business as legitimate and lucrative.
In reality, prosecutors said, it was losing tens of millions of dollars a year. But to keep the fraud going, some of Par’s executives lied about the business’ financial health to keep raising money, and others threatened to harm or even kill borrowers who fell into default.
Still, prosecutors said McElhone was effectively uninvolved in the business, spending her workdays instead running the Old City nail salon Lacquer Lounge.
That doesn’t mean McElhone did not benefit from her husband’s grift. LaForte and his partners extracted cash from Par and spent it on things like a private jet, boats, paintings, expensive watches and jewelry, and homes in the Philadelphia area, Florida, and the Poconos.
And in the single count to which McElhone agreed to plead guilty last year, prosecutors said she knowingly signed a tax form claiming she and LaForte were living in Florida — where there is no state income tax — even though they spent most of their time that year in their $2.5 million Haverford home.
That deception led her to avoid paying about $1.6 million in taxes, prosecutors said, an amount she will now be forced to help repay.
Kearney, the judge, said that others might have been more responsible for the wide array of Par’s wrongdoing — but that she needed to be held accountable for failing to stop the wrongs that unfolded before her.
“When you get in a relationship with people,” he said, “make sure you keep your identity. Because you don’t want to be the person going to jail for their crimes.”
The head of the Pew Charitable Trusts is stepping down.
Susan K. Urahn, president and CEO, is expected to retire in early 2027 after a search for a successor is completed and the new leader has begun working at the organization, a Pew spokesperson said.
Urahn, 72, began at Pew in 1994 and took the top job in 2020 following the retirement of longtime chief Rebecca W. Rimel.
Neither Urahn nor board chair Christopher Jones were made available for interviews. But, in a statement posted on Pew’s website, Urahn said she was fortunate to work with colleagues and a board “all dedicated to finding common ground and using facts as the foundation for discussion and action.”
“Under Sue’s leadership, Pew has become even better and stronger,” read a statement attributed to Jones.
Pew — which has offices in Philadelphia, Washington, D.C., and other cities — is a combination foundation/think tank, conducting research and disbursing grants to nonprofit organizations.
In Philadelphia, it awards money to arts groups through the Pew Center for Arts and Heritage. Its D. C-based Pew Research Center provides research on demographic trends and social issues, as well as polling on matters like politics, religion, climate change, and the role of technology in daily life.
Pew’s work is funded through seven charitable trusts established between 1948 and 1979 by the children of Sun Oil Co. founder Joseph Newton Pew and his wife, Mary Anderson Pew. As of June 2024, the collective value of the trusts was $6.1 billion, a spokesperson said.
In addition to funding Philadelphia arts groups and individual artists, Pew has sometimes taken a more activist role by partnering with other philanthropists on large civic projects costing tens of millions of dollars, such as the 2012 move by the Barnes Foundation from Merion to the Ben Franklin Parkway. In 2008, Pew contributed millions toward a bailout of the Kimmel Center that relieved it of debt left over from the arts center’s construction phase.
Urahn, most recently based in D.C., worked her way through several posts — including director of Pew’s planning and evaluation division; director of the Pew Center on the States; and executive vice president for Pew’s work on state policy, economics and healthcare.
A search for a new president is expected to begin in January.
William B. Starks, 96, of Philadelphia, pastor emeritus at Community Baptist Church in Chester, former associate pastor at Greater Ebenezer Baptist Church in Philadelphia, retired supervisor for the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Department, Montford Point Marine, lifelong singer, and volunteer, died Saturday, Oct. 4, of age-associated decline at Germantown Home rehabilitation center.
Born and reared in Nashville, Tenn., the Rev. Starks grew up singing in church every Sunday. So his wife and two daughters were not surprised that he was ordained in 1966, served 31 years as pastor at Community Baptist, and continued to sing in choirs and elsewhere for the rest of his life.
He was energetic and empathetic, they said, and he became so effective as a spiritual and practical mentor in Chester that city and church officials dedicated part of West Seventh Street in his honor on June 1. They renamed a segment of the street as Rev. William B. Starks Way, installed a sign at Fulton and West Seventh Streets, and called it “a lasting tribute to his selfless service and deep impact on our community.”
The Rev. Starks was recruited from Greater Ebenezer Baptist by Community Baptist in 1978 and commuted every Sunday, and sometimes three nights a week, from his home in West Oak Lane to the church in Chester. His family said he never missed a Sunday service.
Rev. Starks ministered at Community Baptist Church in Chester from 1978 to 2009.
“His love for the Word of God encouraged him,” his family said in a tribute.
The Rev. Starks was direct and serious in the pulpit, and willing to “roll up his sleeves and fight your fight,” his daughter Rhonda said. He created a Presidents Council to better organize church affairs, celebrated when the church paid off the mortgage, and encouraged its use as a satellite location for the Manna Bible Institute.
He invited women and young pastors to preach, and induced the Rev. Jesse Jackson, Gov. Ed Rendell, Rep. Robert Brady, and other notables to address his congregation. His outreach and ministry were recognized in awards and honors from the Four Chaplains Memorial Foundation and other church groups.
In the community, he monitored schools and families for discord, and confronted street-corner problems he encountered. He spoke out often against violence, injustice, crime, and drug abuse.
Rev. Starks (front center) is honored by the Philadelphia chapter of the National Montford Point Marine Association.
“He truly believed in the church being involved spiritually, socially, and politically,” his family said. “He truly had a heart for the people.” Earlier, he attended Tenth Memorial Baptist Church and studied theology at what is now Cairn University in Langhorne.
The Rev. Starks worked at Philco and Whitman’s Chocolates in Philadelphia after he left the Marines in 1952. He spent 25 years with the Philadelphia Parks and Recreation Department, earned service commendations from the Fairmount Park Commission, and left when he became pastor at Community Baptist. He retired from the church in 2009.
He enlisted in the Marines after high school in 1948 and became one of the celebrated Montford Point Marines in North Carolina. He spent four years in the Corps, sang with the Marine choir, rose to corporal, and was transferred to Philadelphia. He never left.
In 2012, he and other Montford Point Marines were awarded the Congressional Gold Medal for enduring racism, segregation, and discrimination during their military tours and still serving with honor and distinction.
Rev. Starks joined the Marines in 1948.
His mother’s cousin was a church pianist and singer, and she regularly took him along to sing at church in Nashville when he was young. Later, he took music classes in high school and studied voice with professor John W. Work III at nearby Fisk University.
In retirement, he volunteered at Eleanor C. Emlen Elementary School and elsewhere in the community. “He was very humble, generous, loving, and caring,” his daughter Rhonda said.
William Barton Starks was born Nov. 2, 1928. He grew up with two brothers, and it was obvious early that his singing voice was exceptional.
He met fellow singer Inez Baldwin at a recital, and they married in 1951. They had daughters Cheryl and Rhonda, and lived in North Philadelphia and West Oak Lane.
Rev. Starks (fifth from right) “would give you anything,” his daughter Cheryl said.
The Rev. Starks and his wife enjoyed annual summer cruises to the Bahamas. He was known as Big Daddy, his family said, “because he was like a father to so many people.” His wife died in 2016.
“He meant the world to me,” said his daughter Cheryl. “He would give you anything.”
His daughter Rhonda said: “He always told us he would do anything and everything for his family, and he did.”
In addition to his daughters, the Rev. Starks is survived by four grandchildren, five great-grandchildren, and other relatives. His brothers died earlier.
Rev. Starks (right) doted on his daughters and grandchildren.
Services were held on Oct. 17 and 18. Interment was Oct. 23 at Washington Crossing National Cemetery.
In an order issued Tuesday, Common Pleas Court Judge Vincent Johnson awarded Fiorillo $35,000 in compensatory damages and $125,000 in punitive damages. The ruling follows a hearing at which the defendant, Ryan Nelson, did not show up.
“It feels great,” Fiorillo said. “Part of what I said at the beginning is thatI would like to support some LGBTQ causes that the defendant very much would dislike his money going to, and I intend to pursue the matter.”
Nelson never responded to the lawsuit, which was filed in April, and no attorney is listed for him on the court docket. James Beasley, the journalist’s lawyer, did receive a threatening email in June from a person identifying as “RN” that included an expletive aimed at Fiorillo in the subject line.
“Tell him to unblock me and stop hiding behind facebook,” saidthe message, which was presented to the judge. “If not i guess i can go to his house and ask him.”
That email is no longer active, and The Inquirer was unable to reach Nelson through publicly available contact information.
“The only person to agree with you likes seeing dudes in dresses dance with kids,” Nelson wrote.
Fiorillo asked if the suggestion was that he was a pedophile because he performs with a drag queen.
“Yes victoria, corruption of a minor. Same as pedophile,” Nelson wrote, adding, “or do you prefer groomer.”
In another comment, Nelson said he’d “bet” that if a drag queen molested children, Victor would “prob write how the kids are homophobic.”
The lawsuit said others on the Facebook group had read Nelson’s comments, and provided an example of another person repeating them.
“There is nothing in the First Amendment that says you can call me a pedophile and a child molester,” Fiorillo previously told The Inquirer.
Fiorillo was the only witness at the Oct. 8 hearing. Johnson interrupted the lawyer’s line of questioning to ask questions of his own, the reporter said. The judge asked over and over how many times Nelson made the comments.
The Philly Mag writer recalled thinking from the stand that the hearing was not going in his favor, but felt a great sense of moral victory when the judge issued his decision.
He said he hopes the ruling sends a message to all the “keyboard warriors out there, in their mother’s basement.”
“That’s a very big part of why I went down this road to begin with. Part of defending free speech is standing against things that aren’t covered by that.”
In March 2023, Kathryn Ott Lovell, then Philadelphia’s parks and recreation commissioner, announced that the plan to build a new Carousel House in West Philly was finally coming together.
The city’s only recreation center dedicated to people with disabilities had closed its doors temporarily in 2020 during the coronavirus pandemic, then permanently in 2021. City officials said years of deferred maintenance had made it unsafe.
“I’m excited to stop talking and start doing,” Ott Lovell said during the 2023 presentation at the Please Touch Museum.
The city’s disability community was also excited to reunite at Carousel House. To many, the rec center on Belmont Avenue had become like a second home, with dances, movies, swimming, arts and crafts, and summer camp.
The city’s youth wheelchair basketball team was looking forward to returning to its home base. Since the rec center closed, the squad has been practicing in New Jersey.
Two and a half years later, however, Ott Lovell has moved on to a new job, Mayor Cherelle L. Parker has replaced Jim Kenney, and the Carousel House plan is still in the design phase.
The new ribbon-cutting date: summer 2028.
“I know this is a point of pain for many people, the timeline associated with this project,” Aparna Palantino, a deputy city managing director, acknowledged at a meeting Tuesday night announcing the “relaunch” of the project.
The previous plan called for Carousel House to reopen this year.
Palantino, who heads the city’s capital program office, said the expected cost of the project had risen from $35 million to $40 million. The work will still be funded primarily with beverage-tax proceeds, but the city had to line up grants to cover the difference, as well as conduct additional environmental and structural analyses.
“The result of all that is this amazing space that will provide so many more opportunities than the former one did,” Palantino told an audience of several dozen.
Aparna Palantino, deputy managing director of Capital Program Office, speaks with attendees during the Carousel House Rebuild Community Relaunch at the Please Touch Museum on Tuesday, Oct. 21, 2025, in Philadelphia. The Carousel House project is estimated to be completed in Summer 2028.
The state-of-the-art rec center will preserve some parts of the iconic Carousel House building and include two basketball courts, a heated lap pool and an activity pool with a zero-entry sloping entrance, a computer lab, a gym, a sensory room, and other amenities.
That all sounds great to people like Mike Martin, who has used a wheelchair for the last 30 years and has been going to Carousel House since the late 1990s. Such a place is needed in Philadelphia, where an estimated 17% of residents have a disability.
But the lengthy delays in the project have Martin, 74, questioning whether he will ever see the vision become a reality.
Martin and others would have preferred for the city to fix the existing building four years ago, when rec centers were reopening after the COVID-19 shutdown. A 2021 “Save the Carousel House” protest failed to sway city leaders.
“The design is way more than I think we expected, not that we’re complaining at all,” said Martin, who serves on the Carousel House advisory committee. “We’ll see what kind of political will there is to push this through. I just don’t want to get my hopes up is what it comes down to.”
Once a model
Carousel House was considered a milestone when it opened in 1987: a city-funded rec center, specifically for people with physical and cognitive limitations, three years before the Americans with Disabilities Act would be signed into law.
The Carousel House is pictured in Philadelphia’s West Fairmount Park on Wednesday, June 2, 2021. The city said it was permanently closing the recreation center for disabled people due to the facility’s deterioration.
But in recent years, disability-rights advocates, both locally and nationally, have come to view that approach as outdated and even discriminatory. How is telling people with disabilities to go to one center, they ask, any different from designating centers for Black people, LGBTQ+ people, or other identity groups?
“People with disabilities shouldn’t have to go to one place. That’s segregation, no matter how you look at it,” Fran Fulton, the late Philadelphia disability-rights activist, told The Inquirer in 2022. “There is no doubt having people who know how to work with children and adults with different types of disabilities is an advantage. But it doesn’t have to be just Carousel House.”
Sadiki Smith (right) stands to dance as music therapist Madison Frank (left) with her guitar leads a music therapy session at Gustine Recreation Center Tuesday, November 29, 2022. Since the closing of the Carousel House, the city’s only rec center for people with physical and intellectual disabilities, many of the programs have moved to Gustine.
The city was already moving in that direction before the pandemic with its long-term Rec for All inclusion plan. The goal is to eventually make the city’s 150 rec centers accessible to all residents. The new Carousel House will be open to all people in the surrounding neighborhoods, not just those with disabilities.
That is welcome news for Lucinda Hudson, president of the Parkside Association of Philadelphia, who attended Tuesday’s meeting.
“It’s well needed, and I think the community is pleased with how it’s coming together,” Hudson said. “We need a facility to be inclusive for all, and to support the handicapped community.”
Worth the wait?
Palantino said that while the Carousel House project has faced significant delays, city officials have continued to work behind the scenes. It is the largest project in the city’s beverage-tax funded Rebuild program, which has so far committed or spent $470 million.
She believes the new building will be worth the wait.
“It will be a universal space, so an entire family can come here and enjoy the amenities. The former Carousel House was a little more restrictive in the population it served,” Palantino said in an interview. “This will be the flagship rec center in the city when it’s completed.”
Attendees look at blueprints during the Carousel House Rebuild Community Relaunch at the Please Touch Museum on Oct. 21.
Families that frequented the Carousel House, however, are running out of patience.
The Gustine Recreation Center in East Falls has continued some of the programs for people with disabilities, including music therapy, basketball, and social groups. But that center doesn’t have the space and amenities that Carousel House provided.
“It’s just not the same,” said Tamar Riley, whose 43-year-old son had been going to Carousel House since he was 12.
“Hopefully we can get this off the ground,” Riley, president of the advisory council for Carousel House, said of the plans presented this week. “It’s been a really long time. I know it’s going to be a beautiful place once the city gets it up and running.”
The closure of Carousel House also forced Katie’s Komets, Philadelphia’s team in the National Wheelchair Basketball Association, to move its weekly practices to RiverWinds Community Center in West Deptford, Gloucester County.
As a result, there is only one Philly player on the team, according to Joe Kirlin, who with his wife, Roseann, created a fund to support the team. The team is named after their late daughter.
“The problem is city kids just can’t get over there,” Joe Kirlin said.
Caroline Fitzpatrick (right), 14, of South Jersey, talks with friends during the Philadelphia Parks & Recreation’s 24th Annual Katie Kirlin Junior Wheelchair Basketball Tournament in Philadelphia on Sunday, Jan. 23, 2022. Fitzpatrick plays on Katie’s Komets team from Philadelphia.
He said wheelchair athletes in the city are missing out on potential collegeopportunities. This year, all three high school graduates on Katie’s Komets received scholarships to play college wheelchair basketball.
“That wouldn’t have happened if they didn’t start as kids playing wheelchair basketball,” Roseann Kirlin said.
Lorraine Gomez, a community activist and president of the Viola Street Residents Association in East Parkside, said after Tuesday’s meeting that she appreciated the city’s efforts to keep the surrounding neighborhoods informed about the project.
Gomez is looking forward to being able to use the indoor pool and walking track in the winter, and said people with disabilities also deserve “to have their space back.”
“This is what the community needs,” Gomez said. “It’ll be a place where we can stay in touch with each other.”
For Hudson, of the Parkside association, the most important thing now is to break ground.
“So many things get put on the books, but don’t happen,” Hudson said. “This has got to be built.”
