An Ephrata man who was charged after making a citizen's arrest last year will face the charges in Lancaster County Court. John Hall Jr. waived a preliminary hearing Friday on a misdemeanor count of impersonating a public servant. District Judge Nancy Hamill ordered that Hall stand......

It appears John Hall Jr. did the right thing, after all — for the most part. False imprisonment charges were dropped Monday against Hall, an Ephrata man who made a citizen's arrest over the summer. Hall had been charged with the misdemeanor — which carried a potential ......

A "sexually violent predator" was paroled Monday after serving 10 months for groping three woman last year. Shawn Henson, 20, admitted in May to assaulting the three victims, including an elderly woman. The assaults happened at different times, and the victims were chosen at rando......

A Lancaster County judge told a young city man Thursday that he is down to his last chance. At age 20, Antonio Dejesus already has a long list of crimes to his credit, Judge Howard Knisely said. His latest, an armed home-invasion robbery, was "almost the most serious offense you c......

An Ephrata woman admitted Thursday that she plotted her mother's death last year with the aid of a man she was dating. Alisa Loump, 24, said in court that she acted on those plans on July 20, 2010, by pouring boiling water on Jennie Loump's head. The boyfriend, Antoine Walker, adm......

Tom Fee was, literally, the type of district judge who would give a prisoner the shirt off his back. It happened a few years ago, when Manheim police Chief Joe Stauffer brought a bare-chested defendant into Fee's Doe Run Road courtroom on a retail theft charge. Fee removed his dre......

Convicted armed robber Lamont Gorham might be partially blind, but that hasn't kept him from a life of crime, a county judge was told on Wednesday. Judge Dennis E. Reinaker agreed, and ordered Gorham to 13 to 26 years in state prison for a series of local robbery and gun charges. ......

A York man who pretended to be blind while committing a pair of local armed robberies will be sentenced to 13 to 26 years in state prison. Lamont Gorham, 57, pleaded guilty Wednesday to a pair of May 2010 robberies and two felony gun charges. He will be sentenced based on a plea agreement......

Two young women wept, gulping for air as they tried to speak. A large man with a gray crewcut, standing not far from them, sobbed. Afterward, spectators wiped their eyes and clung to each other. There were no winners in Courtroom No. 3 Monday morning, the judge said. In th......

An Ephrata man was sentenced to 5 1/2 to 20 years in prison this week for his part in a home-invasion robbery. Dylan C. March, 21, had pleaded guilty earlier to charges of robbery, aggravated assault, burglary and conspiracy, all stemming from the crime on April 17, 2009. It was t......

An Ephrata woman charged with pouring boiling water on her mother will stand trial after waiving a court hearing Tuesday.Alisa Ashley Loump, 23, of Akron Road, and her boyfriend, Antoine Dewayne Walker, 18, of Edinburgh, Ind., both are charged with attempted homicide in the July 20 inciden......

A Lititz man who for years served as the town's Santa Claus pleaded guilty Wednesday to possessing child pornography and sexually assaulting a teenager.Greg Nies, 53, quietly acknowledged the long list of charges against him as he pleaded guilty before Lancaster County Judge Howard Kni......

A Marietta man "cleaned out" a house, the prosecutor said, stealing everything from ice pops and pork chops to jewelry and electronic equipment.But it was the computer Benjamin E. Waltman stole — and used — that led police to his home and thousands of dollars in stolen loot....

A New Holland man told a Lancaster judge that his career of selling drugs "was so many years ago.""I've straightened out my life," Christian Bedoya told Judge James P. Cullen.But the charges of delivering and possession with intent to deliver cocaine were ser......

A convicted killer's parents were found guilty last week in Lancaster County Court of helping their son hide from police after he shot another man.Gregory Strickland, 45, of Philadelphia, and Deborah Addison, 41, of Somerdale, N.J., both face jail sentences for their efforts to help th......

The Denver man has many things in his favor, the judge was told, including a solid work history, lengthy marriage, superior intelligence and no prior arrests.But Monte Schutter also has a problem, the judge was told, one that led him to have on-line conversations with what he believed were......

A Denver man was sentenced to 2½ to 5 years in prison Wednesday for killing a pedestrian while driving in Berks County last year.David W. Taylor, 36, pleaded guilty to homicide by vehicle and driving under the influence of heroin, according to a report in the Reading Eagle newspaper......

A Lancaster County judge said when he thinks about Ray Diener's murder, he'll always wonder, "What if?" "I will always wonder," Judge Joseph Madenspacher asked Emru Kebede on Friday, "if you refused to go along that day, what would have happened?" &......

Ray Diener's wife and children clutched hands and held their breath as the jurors filed into a Lancaster County courtroom Thursday afternoon.They didn't exhale until the jury's verdict was announced, declaring Emru Kebede guilty of second-degree murder in the death of the 65-ye......

A Lancaster County jury is expected to begin deliberations today in the case of a teenager charged in the murder of Ray Diener. Emru Kebede, now 18, of Mount Joy, one of four young men charged with the  May 2007 killing, had indicated earlier that he wanted to testify in his own defese.......

A color photograph of Ray Diener's dead body, covered with a white sheet, was flashed on a large screen in the corner of the Lancaster County courtroom Wednesday.A state trooper held up one of the bullets taken from the 65-year-old Elizabethtown area man's body and showed the jury ......

A color photograph of Ray Diener's body, covered in a white sheet, was flashed onto a screen in a Lancaster County courtroom this morning. Diener, 65, was shot and killed on the doorstep of his West Donegal Township home during a random robbery in May 2007. Today, police told the ju......

The teenager told police that he and his friends drove around looking for the perfect victim.Then they spotted 65-year-old Ray Diener inside his rural West Donegal Township home.The plan was to knock on the door, push their way inside and rob the homeowner.But things went ter......

Barbara Diener told a Lancaster County jury this morning, how she was awakened on the night of May 2, 2007, by something she never heard before. "I heard my husband scream," Mrs. Diener testified. No words, she said, just a loud noise,  "like pain." Mrs. Di......

Lancaster County jurors received quick lessons in Pennsylvania law on Thursday.Juveniles charged with criminal homicide are treated as adults, attorneys explained.In the case they are being asked to decide, Emru Kebede, now 18, of Mount Joy, was 16 years old when he was charged with......

Once again, the family of Ray Diener will have to listen to the gruesome details surrounding the death of the 65-year-old husband, father and grandfather.Once again, a Lancaster County jury will have to decide the fate of one of four young men charged with robbing and shooting the man on t......

Gregory Nies, the former Lititz church youth leader, former mayoral candidate and former town Santa, waived his preliminary hearing Thursday on charges he had sexual contact with a teenage girl.Nies' accuser did not appear in District Judge Daniel Garrett's courtroom in Lititz, and......

A Mount Joy teenager who was 16 when he allegedly played a role in the 2007 doorstep killing of Ray Diener will be tried as an adult.Emru Kebede's attorney on Thursday withdrew a petition that his client be tried in juvenile court, citing overwhelming evidence that prosecutors planned ......

Police on Wednesday accused a former Lititz mayoral candidate who also served as the youth group leader at a borough church of having a sexual relationship with a pre-teen girl.Gregory J. Nies, 56, of South Spruce Street, was arraigned Wednesday morning on two felonies and two misdemeanors......

There's "no lack of intelligence or ability" on the part of Donna Baker, her lawyer told a Lancaster County judge this morning. The 38-year-old Lititz woman graduated from college and completed two years of law school. But for whatever reason, defense attorney Barry Goldma......

Each member of the Manheim "chop shop" had a special task, a Lancaster County judge was told. One helped bring the stolen motorcycles to the garage. Another replaced each bike's vehicle identification number. A third would polish and test-drive the cycles. A four......

A "day of frustration" led to the beating death of 3-year-old Iannely Pomerantz at the hands of her mother's boyfriend in 2006, a defense attorney told a Lancaster County judge Monday.A broken hairbrush apparently was the last straw for 21-year-old Wilfred Torres.Torre......

Two men face trial in separate gun-crimes cases after waiving their preliminary hearings Tuesday.Michael Christopher Scott, 18, of 632 N. Lime St., Apt. 1, is charged with criminal homicide. He allegedly acted as a lookout during a May 7 gunfight that killed a man and wounded a young girl ......

The hearing for a man accused of stabbing an 88-year-old woman during the April burglary of an Ephrata Township home that netted $25 was postponed Monday.Timothy Stallsworth, 41, an ex-convict who shot at a Butler County policeman in 1997, must undergo a mental-health evaluation before an ......