METRO DIGEST || Teacher arrested on sexting charges

Teacher arrested

JAMESTOWN, pa.

A Jamestown High School teacher has been arrested over allegations he sent sexually explicit text messages to two students.

Pennsylvania State Police in Mercer County said Kevin A. Defrancesco, 28, was taken into custody and is in the county jail. Police did not indicate when or where they found him.

Defrancesco was charged last week with unlawful contact with a minor, possessing child pornography, sexual abuse of children, indecent exposure and open lewdness. A warrant was issued then for his arrest.

Police said one of the victims was 13. They did not give the age of the other. They said the contact occurred from Oct. 27 through Dec. 6 at various times.

Sex charge reduced

WARREN

A charge accusing a city man of groping a Warren G. Harding High School student on her way to school has been remanded back to Warren Municipal Court as a misdemeanor.

On Wednesday, a Trumbull County grand jury declined to indict Andre M. Ervin Jr., 47, on a charge of gross sexual imposition but found probable cause for a misdemeanor charge of sexual imposition.

Misdemeanors usually are handled at the municipal-court level, felonies at the county common pleas court level.

Ervin has been charged in Warren Municipal Court 60 times over the past nine years and was sent by a common pleas court judge to a psychiatric hospital in 1996 after he was indicted on a felony offense.

Police said Ervin approached a 16-year-old girl on the Summit Street bridge at 7 a.m. Oct. 7 and hugged her multiple times, then groped her breasts twice before the girl ran away and reported the incident to police.

Nativity to be moved

ELLWOOD CITY, Pa.

A Nativity scene that has been displayed on public property annually for decades will be moved to private land next year to avoid a First Amendment lawsuit from an anti-religion group, town officials said.

Ellwood City Borough Council voted 4-2 Monday to move the display off the grounds of the municipal building after a complaint from the Wisconsin-based Freedom From Religion Foundation, which said the Christian creche violated the separation between church and state.

Councilman Glenn Jones said he reluctantly supported the relocation to avoid a costly lawsuit that could result in the borough being ordered to move the Nativity display anyway, according to the Ellwood City Ledger. It has been displayed in the same spot for about 50 years.

Staff and wire reports