Pa. man barred from courtroom over judge threat

PITTSBURGH (AP) — A Pittsburgh-area man was barred from watching the trial of a man accused of killing three city police officers because he’d previously threatened the judge overseeing the case.

Allegheny County sheriff’s deputies say Paul Sirmons was stopped Tuesday as he tried to enter the courtroom where Richard Poplawski is on trial in the April 2009 shooting deaths of three Pittsburgh police officers.

Sirmons pleaded guilty in March to making threats against the judge overseeing Poplawski’s case, Jeffrey Manning. Sirmons admitted spray-painting a threat at the courthouse entrance because Manning had sentenced him to probation in 1995 for an assault.

Sirmons told officials he was at the courthouse for a hearing of his own and wanted to watch the Poplawski case.