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Posted: September 07, 2011

PHILADELPHIA

Flash-mob teens plead

Three teenagers who were students at Mastery Charter School have admitted to randomly attacking a man in Center City on July 29, leaving him with a fractured jaw.

The ninth- and 10th-graders entered the equivalent of guilty pleas in Family Court yesterday.

The assault sent the 36-year-old victim to the hospital for two days. Prosecutor Leslie Gomez said that the victim's jaw is still wired shut and that he faces more surgery.

Held teen in jail transfer

Winston Charleston, the Tacony teenager charged this summer with swiping his mother's car keys and causing a joyriding crash that killed a Bensalem man, may soon be transferred from adult jail to the Youth Study Center.

The Philadelphia Industrial Correctional Center, on State Road, is no place for Charleston, who turned 14 three days before the June 30 accident, Common Pleas Judge Benjamin Lerner said during a hearing yesterday. He said he planned to discuss the matter with Family Court Administrative Judge Kevin Dougherty.

Charleston, who allegedly killed Daniel Fouracre, 22, is charged as an adult with third-degree murder and related counts. He's being held on $600,000 bail.

Bridging digital divide

Philadelphia families with children who qualify for the free-lunch program can now get Internet service at home for $10 a month through the Internet Essentials program launched by Comcast yesterday.

Those who enroll in the program also will receive a voucher to buy a computer for $150. The program also will provide digital-literacy training to parents to learn how to apply for jobs online or other services available to them.

Call 1-855-846-8376 or visit internetessentials.com for more information.

New head of ACLU-PA

Reginald Shuford was named yesterday as the new executive director of the American Civil Liberties Union of Pennsylvania.

Shuford, former director of law and policy at the Equal Justice Society, will replace Nancy Hopkins, who recently retired as the ACLU-PA's executive director after six years.

Shuford also served as senior staff counsel in the national ACLU's racial-justice program for 15 years, helping to pioneer legal challenges to racial-profiling practices, and was chief litigator in those challenges, which included "driving while black or brown," airport profiling and profiling related to the war on terror.

SOUTH JERSEY

Guilty plea in hit-run

Philip Mastella, 28, of Sicklerville, pleaded guilty yesterday to a count of leaving the scene of an accident last September that led to bodily injury or death, after hitting and killing a man with his car.

He admitted driving a Ford Explorer on Sept. 14, and driving away knowing that he had struck and injured Gary Forsythe, 32, of Merchantville, on Linden Avenue in Merchantville about 12:30 a.m.

Mastella sped away, knocking Forsythe to the ground. Forsythe died at 9:48 p.m. that day at Cooper University Hospital in Camden.

-Staff and wire reports

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