National Roundup

Pennsylvania
Felony count over 43 cents’ worth of Mountain Dew is dropped
HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — Pennsylvania prosecutors have dropped a felony theft charge against a man who underpaid for a bottle of Mountain Dew by 43 cents.

Prosecutors in Perry County dropped the theft charge this month against Joseph Sobolewski, 38, and downgraded another charge, the Patriot-News reported Tuesday.

In August, Sobolewski went into an Exxon in Duncannon and saw a sign advertising two 20-ounce Mountain Dew bottles for $3, he said. He took one bottle, slapped $2 on the counter for what he thought was a $1.50 soda and walked out, not realizing the discount did not apply to a single bottle.

The bottle really cost $2.29, so including tax, he owed the store 43 cents.

State police found Sobolewski and arrested him on a felony charge. A judge ordered him held on $50,000 cash-only bond. He was in jail for seven days before his public defender successfully argued for his release, the newspaper reported.

Sobolewski had twice in the past 10 years been charged with theft, once for not paying for a tank of gas and another time for stealing a pair of shoes from a store. Under Pennsylvania’s three-strikes law, a third theft charge must be a felony, regardless of the amount or value involved. He faced up to seven years in prison.

District Attorney Andrew Bender did not answer emails or calls from the Patriot-News. Sobolewski did not return messages seeking comment.

Sobolewski told the newspaper it was “great news” that the felony was being dismissed. “I feel I was treated unequally because I had a record.”

The newspaper previously reported that Sobolewski had been charged with theft in Cumberland County earlier in the summer on suspicion of trying to take items from a Hobby Lobby with his wife. For that charge, his bail was set at $2,000, and he is applying for a diversion program there.


Florida
Judge: Fraud cannot be mentioned in family slayings trial
KISSIMMEE, Fla. (AP) — A judge has ruled that a federal fraud investigation can’t be mentioned during the murder trial of a Connecticut physical therapist accused of killing his wife and three children at their home in central Florida.

Osceola County Judge Keith Carsten on Tuesday sided with Anthony Todt’s defense lawyers, who argued that there was no evidence tying the fraud investigation to the killing of his family. Todt worked as a physical therapist in Connecticut during the week and spent weekends with his family at their home near Walt Disney World.

Federal agents serving an arrest warrant in January 2020 found Todt inside the family’s home with his dead wife Megan, 42, and three children, Alek, 13, Tyler, 11 and Zoe, 4. The family dog Breezy was also killed.

Details of his initial confession to deputies have not yet been made public, but Orange-Osceola Assistant Public Defender Peter Schmer told the court that Todt denied that the killings were tied to healthcare fraud, and prosecutor Danielle Pinnell said her team had never planned to tie the killings to the fraud case, the Orlando Sentinel reported.

“Mr. Todt went on at great length to talk about the motivation for the killings being this reckoning of an apocalyptic nature,” Schmer told the judge.

Court documents that have never been publicly released suggest Todt told deputies he strangled his family, the Sentinel reported. He later accused Megan Todt of drugging their children and later “stabbing and suffocating them.”

Still to be decided is whether a jury can learn about Todt’s initial confession. His lawyers argue he wasn’t mentally coherent when deputies interviewed him. They also say he was not properly advised of his rights.

Todt is charged with first-degree murder and animal cruelty, but the judge has prohibited referring to the killings as murder, and calling the house where the family was found dead “the murder scene.”

Todt was also allowed to appear in court unshackled, and the judge has forbidden mention of his last name as the German word for “dead,” the newspaper reported. The jury will be allowed to see photos of the victims’ bodies, despite protests from the defense.

During a four-hour hearing on Tuesday, lawyers and the judge sought to settle pending motions before jury selection, which is set to begin Nov. 1. The judge said the trial could still be delayed, calling next week’s date a “placeholder.”

Pennsylvania
Police to get stun guns after Wallace shooting
PHILADELPHIA (AP) — Philadelphia will spend $14 million to equip all of its officers with stun guns, train them on how to use them and require officers to wear them while on duty.

The Philadelphia Inquirer reported the announcement Tuesday, the anniversary of the fatal police shooting of Walter Wallace Jr., which was filmed by a bystander and sparked days of protests over police brutality. The 27-year-old Wallace, who was Black, was having a mental health episode.

He was holding a knife when he was shot 14 times by two white police officers who were not equipped with stun guns, police officials said. The announcement Tuesday was made in coordination with Wallace’s family, including his mother, who witnessed his shooting.

“The killing of Mr. Wallace, Jr. was painful and traumatic for many Philadelphians,” Mayor Jim Kenney said in a statement. “This tragic and unsettling incident, along with last year’s protests, underscored the urgency of many important reforms such as mental health training and crisis response resources.”

After the shooting, police and city officials said that nearly two-thirds of the more than 6,000-member Philadelphia police force were not equipped with or trained to use electroshock weapons, a less lethal use of force.

After the police killing of George Floyd in Minneapolis just a few months before Wallace’s death, protests erupted across the country calling for changes to address police brutality. Advocates pushed departments to require training officers to exhaust other forms of force before firing guns.

After the Wallace shooting, the victim’s family sued the officers, alleging they used unreasonable force, and the city for failing to equip its officers with the stun guns, as had been recommended after a 2015 report by the U.S. Department of Justice. The lawsuit is still pending.

Wallace’s family had called for help several times the day of his shooting, and the final 911 call warned that Wallace was mentally unstable.

As part of reforms in how police and first responders handle mental health crises after the shooting of Wallace, the city began a pilot program that pairs a health care worker with a police officer to respond to 911 calls. The city hopes to expand that program.