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| Grand Jury Indicts Eight in Beaver County Corruption Probe |
| By Pittsburgh Post-Gazette |
| Published: 03/05/2003 |
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A trio of Beaver County jail officers, a sheriff's deputy and a youth detention center counselor are among eight people charged in a public corruption investigation that began after the slaying of an Aliquippa police officer nearly two years ago. Among those arrested yesterday was a jail officer and former Aliquippa police officer who, authorities said, accepted nearly $12,000 in bribes to change her testimony in an attempted murder case. Also arrested was a former state prison officer and a former all-state football player who was charged with homicide in 2001 but later acquitted. The arrests of five current or former Beaver County employees, as well as testimony naming another deputy sheriff in an extortion scheme, have prompted Beaver County officials to launch their own investigation of employee hiring practices and other activities at the jail. The arrests resulted from a state grand jury investigation that began in April 2001, a month after officer James Naim was shot to death while patrolling in Aliquippa's Linmar Terrace housing complex. It initially examined Naim's slaying, leading to a trial last year in which one man was convicted of third-degree murder but another was acquitted. The grand jury later broadened its focus to review allegations of police misconduct in Beaver County, including Naim's own remarks to relatives that Aliquippa's police should be investigated if he died violently. State Attorney General Mike Fisher noted that yesterday's arrests did not result from information provided by Naim and that Naim 'took to his grave' whatever he may have known about public corruption. He also said the grand jury is continuing to hear testimony about other allegations and that more arrests are expected. But Fisher and Beaver County District Attorney Dale Fouse both invoked Naim's name when announcing the arrests yesterday, calling him a 'good, hard-working' cop who was the catalyst for an investigation that was unsavory but necessary to restore trust in the county's public officials. 'This has truly been a long, difficult experience for law enforcement in Beaver County,' Fouse said. 'The vast majority of law enforcement officers in Beaver County are honest, hard-working members of society and they want to be viewed as such.' County Commission Chairman Dan Donatella, who chairs the county's prison board, and Fouse, who sits on the board, said the arrests indicate that county hiring practices aren't stringent enough. Donatella said all county employees facing charges will be fired if they are held for trial, and he will demand an investigation of hiring practices and operations at the jail. 'I am very alarmed by this. We do screening, drug testing, background investigations to be sure we are hiring the right people, but nothing showed up on these people,' Donatella said. 'I can't remember in recent times this kind of conduct, but believe me, we are going to be looking hard at this.' State police arrested all but one of the suspects -- some of whom were wearing their county uniforms -- and escorted them for arraignment by District Justice Janet Swihart. They included: *Jail officer Kim Nanette Lay, 32, of Aliquippa, who also is a former part-time Aliquippa police officer. She was charged with bribery and conspiracy and was jailed on $22,500 straight bond. *Deputy sheriff Antoine Horton, 40, of Monaca. He was charged with perjury and false swearing and was jailed on $15,000 straight bond. *Tamiko C. Dawkins, 27, of Aliquippa, who is a former corrections officer at the State Correctional Institution Greene. She was charged with perjury and false swearing and was jailed on $25,000 straight bond. *Jail officer Shondra Shirell Walker, 36, of Monaca. She was charged with retail theft, theft and conspiracy and was jailed on $20,000 straight bond. *Randall Steven 'Mookie' Anderson, 22, of Rochester, a former football star at Rochester High School who in 2001 was acquitted of fatally shooting Robert Walker Jr., 24, of Aliquippa, while Walker sat in a car a year earlier. Anderson was charged with theft and conspiracy and was jailed on $20,000 straight bond. *Marvin Woods Jr., 36, of Aliquippa, a counselor at the Youth Development Center in Lawrence County. He was charged with perjury and false swearing and was jailed on $25,000 straight bond. *Jail officer Darron Edward Shegog, 34, of Aliquippa. He was charged with hindering apprehension and conspiracy and was jailed on $25,000 straight bond. *Former jail officer William Frank Alston III, who is the son of former Aliquippa police chief and current deputy sheriff Chief William Alston. He was charged with conspiracy and was being sought in Charlotte, N.C., where he now lives. Fisher said investigators have no indication that the elder Alston was involved. Fisher said the charges stemmed from three separate, unrelated cases. In the most serious case, Fisher said Lay, while still a police officer, accepted between $11,000 and $12,000 in bribes to recant testimony that she saw Anthony Tusweet Smith shoot at Thomas 'Snooky' Jeter outside the Dew Drop Inn in Aliquippa in 1998. Lay, who was off duty, called police and identified Smith as the gunman. But at Smith's preliminary hearing, Lay changed her story and testified she took cover when the shooting started and was unable to see who fired. An attempted homicide charge against Smith was dismissed. Lay initially denied taking a bribe but later told investigators that she got $7,000 in a first meeting with Smith and another $4,000 to $5,000 afterward. Smith was later convicted of shooting and wounding Kyle Goosby, who was a witness to the Naim shooting. In the second case, Horton was accused of lying to the grand jury about his activities while transporting prisoner Vance Walker on April 12 and April 13, 2001. Walker, a convicted drug dealer serving a sentence at the State Correctional Institution Pine Grove, was granted a temporary release to attend his father's funeral. Walker was supposed to be returned to prison immediately, but the grand jury found, that Horton first allowed Walker to have sex with Dawkins, who was then Walker's girlfriend and worked as a corrections officer at the state prison in Greene County. That violated the no-fraternization provision of the state corrections employees' ethics code. Dawkins and Woods, whom investigators identified as a friend of Walker, also were charged with lying to the grand jury. Dawkins resigned from SCI-Greene Nov. 2, 2001, two weeks after she testified before the grand jury. In the third case, jail officer Shondra Walker is charged with approaching jail inmate Patricia Staving in February 2002 and asking Staving to steal from local stores when she got out of jail. In March 2001, the grand jury found, Walker took Staving to the Kmart in Rochester. There, the grand jury found, Walker gave Staving a list of things to steal and agreed to pay Staving half of the retail value of those items. While Walker waited for Staving in the parking lot, Staving was apprehended by security officers and charged with retail theft. She later contacted state police and agreed to allow them to record her telephone conversations with Walker. In May, Staving called Walker and told her she'd used a stolen credit card to buy two computers, valued at about $3,500. Walker agreed to buy them for $82 and was confronted by state police when she and Anderson, then her boyfriend, later met Staving at a fast food restaurant to pick up the computers, the grand jury said. |
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