According to the Express-Times (read it here) and the Morning Call (read it here) the Nazareth Borough Council and Police Department decided not to retain officer Jason Gabriel following his one year probationary period on Monday. After being notified on Monday, Gabriel returned to the station on Tuesday to turn in items and learned that he had missed a court date that day. Without his testimony, the DA office attorney chose to plea-bargain.
The case was against Donald Pysher, who was charged with beating and choking his girlfriend, pleaded guilty to two counts that could get him up to 2 years in prison each compared to the 20 years he could have gotten if convicted of the original charges that were not a part of the plea-bargain.
The Express-Times article notes:
Borough Mayor Earl Keller said he felt the force was covered when Officer Jacob Abel, who also responded to the call, was sent to court, but Assistant District Attorney Jackie Taschner felt she needed Gabriel's testimony to proceed.
Both daily newspapers’ headlines appear to me to indicate the officer failed to appear in retaliation for being terminated, but this quote seems to indicate as the officer noted, he wasn’t informed by the department that he was to be in court for the case.
I can’t argue for the quality of the officer’s work, but it seems wrong that the woman who was allegedly assaulted never got the trial she wanted as a result of this.
3 comments:
And so now an abuser pretty much goes free because of Mayor Keller's decision and the fact that the key prosecution witness was not notified that he was to testify tanking the case against this piece of garbage.
So when this happens again at the hands of this person, and statistics show that it will, the victim will be able to thank Mayor Keller and those that made the decision not to inform Officer Gabriel that he was to testify.
I really hope everyone remembers this come election time.
Police ofiicers do not find out that they have a hearing on the day of the hearing. Normally the officer is given AT LEAST a weeks notice. The officer recieves a subpoena just like any other witness for the commonwealth. So unless something out of the ordinary happened (which is possible with the state of disarray that the Nazareth police department appears to be in) Officer Gabriel more than likely received a hearing notice well in advance of the hearing.
OMG!!! this hapened to my firend and i. i was peppered srayed and chocked and punched in the head by a women and officer swansan did nothing about it. i pressed charges and never heard anything again. we went back to the police station a couple of times to just be given excuses. this women got away with this and i am pissed!!! how many other people have to get hurt in this town??????
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