Basement

The District Attorney's Office refiled charges Thursday against a man a judge had dismissed as a defendant in the kidnapping and abuse case involving the imprisonment of four mentally challenged adults in a Tacony basement. Eddie Ray Wright, 50, is charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, false imprisonment, terroristic threats, and stalking. A hearing is set for Jan. 20. Wright remains in custody, said his lawyer, Lou D'Onofrio, who said he plans to ask the court to dismiss the charges again.

The District Attorney's Office refiled charges Thursday against a man a judge dismissed as a defendant in the alleged kidnapping and abuse case involving the inprisonment of four mentally challenged adults in a Tacony basement. Eddie Ray Wright, 50, is charged with aggravated assault, kidnapping, unlawful restraint, reckless endangerment, false imprisonment, terroristic threats and stalking. A hearing is set for Jan. 20. Wright remains in custody, said his lawyer, Lou D'Onofrio, who said he plans to ask the court to dismiss the charges again.

A judge dismissed charges Tuesday against one of four people in an alleged kidnapping scheme that ended with the discovery of four mentally challenged adults locked in a Tacony basement in October. Testimony from several witnesses in a two-day preliminary hearing in Common Pleas Court indicated that Eddie Ray Wright was a victim of alleged ringleader Linda Ann Weston, not the accomplice that prosecutors and police had alleged, said Judge Patrick Dugan. Assistant District Attorney Erin O'Brien had argued that Wright acted as a bodyguard and jailer on Weston's behalf, sometimes abusing the other captives when she demanded it. But witnesses testified that Wright, 50, slept in the same foul basement where the four victims were discovered Oct. 15, and that Weston was collecting his Social Security benefits.

IN A matter-of-fact voice, and wearing a long, straight black wig that hid the severe injuries and scars to her head, a niece of Linda Ann Weston described to a judge yesterday how she had been tortured over the years. Beatrice Weston said that she was beaten, burned, banished to live in locked closets and forced to prostitute herself. When they lived in Texas, Linda Weston called men on a party line and would "have them come up [to Weston's house] and make me have sex with them," Beatrice testified yesterday.

During more than 10 years of living with accused kidnapper Linda Ann Weston, Edwin Sanabria never yelled for help or tried to escape. Testifying during a preliminary hearing Monday in the kidnapping, assault, and fraud case against Weston, Sanabria, 31, described years of being imprisoned in rooms or small spaces, sleeping on floors, often going without food, and witnessing the repeated beatings of Weston's other alleged victims. Sanabria, one of four mentally challenged adults who were found in a Tacony subbasement in October, told of fathering several children with one of Weston's other alleged victims, only to have them taken away.

AFTER arriving in Philadelphia crammed with five other people in the rear luggage area of a Ford Expedition, Edwin Sanabria told a packed courtroom yesterday, he was led down to a sub-basement and ordered to sleep in "the little hole. " "At first, I didn't want to," said Sanabria, 31. "Linda made me. " Sanabria, who stands about 5 feet 2 and is slightly built, had sauntered into the courtroom with a multicolored hooded sweatshirt, a black Polo shirt, jeans and black boots.

A judge dismissed charges Tuesday against one of four people in an alleged kidnapping scheme that ended with the discovery of four mentally challenged adults locked in a Tacony basement in October. Testimony from several witnesses in a two-day preliminary hearing in Common Pleas Court indicated that Eddie Ray Wright was a victim of alleged ringleader Linda Ann Weston, not the accomplice that prosecutors and police had alleged, said Judge Patrick Dugan. Assistant District Attorney Erin O'Brien had argued that Wright acted as a bodyguard and jailer on Weston's behalf, sometimes abusing the other captives when she demanded it. But witnesses testified that Wright, 50, slept in the same foul basement where the four victims were discovered Oct. 15, and that Weston was collecting his Social Security benefits.

Home invaded, family is bound in basement * B Street near Ruscomb, Feltonville A family of four was ambushed yesterday morning by three robbers who left the family tied up in the basement of their house, police said. As the homeowner was leaving for work about 10:15 a.m., he was confronted at gunpoint by three men wearing masks who had been in a black work van, according to police. They forced the man back in to his house on, where they tied up him and three members of the family, police said.

The homeowner didn't have a clue, so neither did the cable TV repairman as he ducked into the basement. Then he heard a noise. "He heard growling, and he thought it was the guy upstairs," a witness told New York's Fox5 TV station. "And when he turned around he saw the bear laying there. . . . He left all his equipment there and ran out. " A large black bear. A 500-pounder, officials estimated. The incident unfolded Wednesday afternoon in a crowded neighborhood Hopatcong, Sussex County, where the bear had been spotted earlier in the day. The basement was accessible from outside.