LAWRENCE COUNTY JAIL Same drug charges to be refiled

An inmate did not have an attorney for the hearing.
By LAURE CIOFFI
VINDICATOR NEW CASTLE BUREAU
NEW CASTLE, Pa. -- Charges against seven people accused of bringing drugs into the Lawrence County Jail were dismissed, but are expected to be refiled today.
Lawrence County District Attorney Matthew Mangino said one of the defendants, Glenn Benegasi, did not have an attorney at Wednesday's preliminary hearing. Six of the seven defendants were scheduled for hearings that day.
Benegasi, who was an inmate at the jail, should have had a court-appointed attorney, he said.
Mangino said District Justice David Rishel was holding fast to the rule that a defendant must have a preliminary hearing within three to 10 days of being charged and was considering dismissing Benegasi's charges because that window of time was ending.
The district attorney said they decided to withdraw all of the charges and refile to make matters easier. Mangino said some of the other six defendants were cooperating with the district attorney's office and had agreed to testify. But Mangino said "their incentive to cooperate was evaporating" when they learned Benegasi's case might be dismissed. He is considered the ringleader, Mangino said.
All seven will be arraigned this morning on the same charges filed last week.
Charges
City police were called to the jail after Benegasi, an inmate, was taken to Jameson Hospital after reporting that he had taken OxyContin, a prescription drug, and was in pain.
Police said he was treated at 2:20 a.m. July 8 and told officials he had taken four 80 mg tablets. Court papers said Benegasi did have opiates in his system.
According to an affidavit to support the charges, Benegasi told police his grandmother, Vera Frank, 74, of North Cedar Street, who legally has a prescription for OxyContin, gave Benegasi's girlfriend 10 pills.
The girlfriend, Elena LePore, 33, of West Clayton Street, took the pills and $30 to Tire Express in New Castle and gave them to Albert Tedrow, a work-release inmate, court papers said.
Tedrow told police when he returned to the jail, he gave the pills to another inmate, Ross Edward Seliga, 34, of Logan Avenue, Sharon. The affidavit said Seliga then gave the pills to another inmate, Thomas George Farah II, 45, of Park Avenue, New Castle, who passed them on to corrections officer David B. Kennedy, 22, of Ellwood Road, New Castle.
Kennedy then went to Benegasi's cell and threw in a folded up piece of paper containing six OxyContin tablets, police said. Police said Kennedy no longer works at the jail.
Police said they have a telephone conversation taped at the jail among Benegasi, Frank, LePore and Farah discussing how the drugs would be brought into the jail.
Charges were filed Aug. 24 against all seven.
Benegasi, 31, of North Cedar Street, is charged with criminal conspiracy to deliver and possess a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and criminal use of a communication facility.
Frank, Kennedy, LePore, Tedrow, Farah and Seliga are each charged with criminal conspiracy to possess a controlled substance and criminal conspiracy to deliver a controlled substance, possession of a controlled substance and possession with intent to deliver a controlled substance.
Frank, LePore and Farah are also charged with criminal use of a communication facility.