Man Re-charged In 'Horrors' Case

EDDIE WRIGHT, a self-proclaimed street preacher from Texas, should get comfortable at the defendant's table because he's headed to trial on charges that he helped imprison four mentally disabled adults in a dank Tacony basement in a scheme to steal their Social Security benefits.

During a second preliminary hearing yesterday, Common Pleas Judge Paula Patrick reversed a lower-court decision to dismiss kidnapping, aggravated-assault and other charges against Wright.

The reversal came after Assistant District Attorney Erin O'Brien presented additional evidence, including a Social Security disability application listing Wright as a friend and contact for one of the four alleged victims. O'Brien argued that the paperwork proved that Wright was a "person of trust" - akin to a "lookout" - in a kidnapping and fraud conspiracy allegedly orchestrated by Linda Ann Weston. O'Brien said that Wright had beaten the victims "for sport."

Police arrested Weston, 52, along with her boyfriend, Gregory Thomas, 48, and daughter, Jean McIntosh, 32, last year after the landlord of an apartment building on Longshore Avenue discovered the four adults imprisoned, with little food and no bathroom, in a cramped, dark boiler room.

Wright's defense attorney, Louis D'Onofrio, had argued that Wright was a victim forced to sleep in the locked boiler room with the other captives. Weston also stole Wright's Social Security disability money, he said.

After listening to witness testimony at Wright's first preliminary hearing, in December, Municipal Judge Patrick Dugan dismissed all charges against Wright. But the D.A.'s Office refiled the charges and Wright remained in jail.

Yesterday, O'Brien presented as evidence Social Security disability forms for alleged victim Edwin Sanabria and for one of Weston's children. On Sanabria's application, Wright is listed as a friend who could attest to Sanabria's disabilities. On the other application, Wright is named as pastor and counselor to Weston's teenage daughter. O'Brien also produced a Western Union money-transfer order in which Wright allegedly wired $400 to Weston's teenage son, Gregory Thomas Jr., and paperwork showing that Wright and Weston co-purchased a 1994 Dodge van.

D'Onofrio argued that the new evidence doesn't prove that Wright filled out or signed the documents. He said that the two Social Security forms don't appear to have been written in the same handwriting.