Court

A dream had carried the boys so far from home, some 5,000 miles across the ocean to a cramped and dingy apartment in Philadelphia: a hope that ice hockey could change their lives. Ivan Pravilov could fulfill that dream, they were told. He could take them from the daily grind of post-communist Ukraine to the gleaming ice of the NHL. He'd done it before. He'd done if for Andrei Zyuzin, who went on to play for six NHL teams. He'd done it for Konstantin Kalmikov, a third-round draft pick of the Toronto Maple Leafs in 1996.

INSTEAD OF HANDING out toothbrushes and dental floss, a dentist in East Mount Airy was busted dishing out prescriptions for Percocet and Oxycodone — and may have treated patients while he was high on crack cocaine, according to the Pennsylvania Attorney General. A monthlong investigation — which began with a tip from a confidential informant — ended Thursday with the arrest of Chandrakant Parekh, 62, who allegedly sold at least 14 prescriptions for Oxycodone and Percocet for between $30 and $40 each from his clinic on Germantown Avenue near Sharpnack Street.

Consumers who bought so-called Skechers "toning shoes" may be eligible for refunds. The Federal Trade Commission announced Wednesday that the California-based company had agreed to pay $45 million to settle charges it deceived consumers. The FTC alleged that the shoe company made unfounded claims that its Shape-ups fitness shoes, which retailed for about $100 a pair, would help people lose weight, and strengthen and tone their buttocks, legs and abdominal muscles. Federal regulators also alleged Skechers made similar deceptive claims about its Resistance Runner, Toners and Tone-ups shoes.

Does Lamar Odom blame his wife for ruining a potentially great NBA career? Does Lamar, effectively booted by the Dallas Mavericks, think Khloé Kardashian loves her career as one of the principals in The Kardashian Un-Reality Industry more than her marriage? Does he want to leave her? These questions haunt us at night. Khloé, too, by the sounds of it. The embattled reality star, who this week announced she and Lamar are temporarily benching their reality show, Khloé & Lamar, tells People mag there are bumps in her marriage.

Craig Jackson was just 15 when he shot at three West Philadelphia teenagers within a matter of days, police said, wounding one. At 16, police said, Jackson let loose another volley of bullets, firing at five people gathered on a North Philadelphia street. He hit two. Four shooting incidents. Eight targets. Three people shot. Lots of witnesses. A slam dunk? Not exactly. In fact, by the time Assistant District Attorney Peter Erdely was assigned the Jackson file, the entire prosecution was in deep trouble.

Philadelphia officials recently announced a new campaign to collect the staggering amount of bail owed by defendants who have missed court dates over the last several decades. The laudable effort is designed to impose greater consequences for failure to appear in court and to produce more revenue for the city. The millions of dollars in outstanding bail are a symptom of a larger problem: the troubling number of defendants who do not show up for their court dates. Our recent Pew Charitable Trusts study, "Philadelphia's Crowded, Costly Jails: The Search for Safe Solutions," found that about 30 percent of city defendants released before trial miss their court appearances.

PHILADELPHIA's court system, the First Judicial District, is enacting reforms to make it easier for people to challenge court debts they believe are inaccurate. Legal advocates say the changes, scheduled to take effect in about six weeks, will give poor people a better chance at fighting debts. Last year, court officials announced plans to crack down on debtors, who owed the district a combined total of about $1.5 billion in forfeited bail, restitution and other court costs.

WHAT'S WITH Philadelphia Family Court? The city is pleading with fathers to have more of an active role in raising their children, but when a loving father goes to court to have time with his child, to be part of the child's life, the court allows him two visits per month. What's wrong with this picture? How does a father have an active role in a child's life with two days out of a month? I'm willing to listen to any rational explanation of this; however, there are none. Kathleen Ludy, Philadelphia

The Feb. 2 editorial following the Inquirer series "Disorder in the court" offered a four-point mandate for reform: merit selection of judges, strengthening the Judicial Inquiry and Review Board, a more reform-minded bar association and, finally, public participation in a court-watching program. The Citizens Crime Commission supports that agenda, and I agree with your basic contention that, unless this is the kind of judiciary we want, "the constituencies must join together to demand change now. " However, I take issue with your statement that court watching has not been tried here.

Steve Sader advanced to the quarterfinals of the National B Court Tennis Championship with a 10-2 victory over fellow Philadelphian Bill Diamond yesterday at the Racquet Club. All matches in the 18-player field consisted of one 10-game set because the facility has only one court. Sader performed soundly, keeping the ball well in play and hitting it to best advantage. He moved from 1-1 to 5-1 and ran out from 5-2. Harry Hare of Philadelphia also gained the quarterfinals by defeating Steve Poskanzer of Boston, 10-6, after putting out Barney Tanfield of Philadelphia, 10-1.

MAYS LANDING, N.J. - "Both?" Double murder suspect Antoinette Pelzer expressed surprise and swallowed hard in a court appearance Tuesday afternoon after learning that both the Canadian women she allegedly stabbed with a 12-inch butcher knife in an attack Monday in the tourism district of Atlantic City had died. According to charges read by Superior Court Judge Michael Donio, who set bail at $1.5 million for Pelzer, the older of the two victims, an 80-year-old, intervened as Pelzer attacked the younger, who was 47 and believed to be the older woman's daughter.

PITTSBURGH - State Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin, stripped of her duties, vowed to fight the criminal charges filed against her Friday and said she had no plans to quit Pennsylvania's highest court. "My faith will see me through this," Melvin said outside the Municipal Court Building. She denied what she called "these politically motivated charges. " The charges brought by Allegheny County prosecutors involve use of taxpayer-paid staff for political campaigning - and are rooted in evidence that emerged in the case against Melvin's sister, State Sen. Jane Orie, convicted in March of similar charges.

Johnson & Johnson's courtroom fights over Risperdal resume in Philadelphia on Wednesday, when Commonwealth Court judges are scheduled to hear an appeal of decisions to dismiss Pennsylvania's 2008 lawsuit that alleged the company fraudulently profited from sales of the antipsychotic drug through the Medicaid program. While Pennsylvania's case did go to trial in Philadelphia, it did not get far. In 2010, a Philadelphia judge threw out the lawsuit, which sought to show that J&J had tricked the state into paying millions more for the drug than it should have.

TRENTON — Democratic lawmakers want to divert some nonviolent offenders into drug treatment rather than prison, a notion Gov. Christie made one of his priorities this year. But two bills winding their way through the Senate and Assembly would use a two-county pilot program to test Christie's belief that forcing people into drug treatment can work. Christie wants to make participation in drug court, a program that keeps drug-addicted offenders out of jail and in treatment, mandatory.

Three people from South Jersey were to be arraigned this afternoon in federal court in Camden in connection with a $2.6 million time share mortgage fraud scheme, the U.S. Attorney for New Jersey said. Ashley Lacerda, 32, of Egg Harbor Township, Francis Santore, 52, of Northfield and Brian Corley, 27, of Egg Harbor, were among 16 defendants charged on April 17 with a variety of offenses, including conspiracy to commit mail and wire fraud. Authorities said Lacerda, Santore and Corley worked for The Vacation Ownership Group and that the investigation revealed that from at least March 2009 to September 1, 2011, the defendants, often using false identities, telephoned owners of time-share vacation properties purchased through Flagship Resort Development, Wyndham Vacation Resorts Inc. and other time-share developers.

LYNCHBURG, Va. - Mitt Romney, needing badly to stir momentum among skeptical evangelical Christians vital to his presidential hopes, told a polite audience Saturday at Liberty University, an influential Christian school, that he shared and deeply respected their values. "People of different faiths, like yours and mine, sometimes wonder where we can meet in common purpose, when there are so many differences in creed and theology," said Romney, whose Mormon religion has been criticized in some evangelical circles.

Commonwealth Court has ordered former Philadelphia Housing Authority Executive Director Carl R. Greene to pay a $1,653 fine to the state Ethics Commission and to file missing reports on his income and expenses. In March, the ethics panel filed suit, seeking to enforce its fine and order that the reports from 2004 to 2009 be filed. In an order filed Wednesday, Judge J. Wesley Oler Jr. ruled that Greene submit the missing reports and pay the fine within 30 days. Greene had failed to meet the commission's repeated requests that he file the reports.

Robert Mongeluzzi, the Philadelphia plaintiff's lawyer representing families of two Hungarian tourists killed in the duck-boat accident, is known both for his surgically precise trial technique and for the hundreds of millions of dollars he has won in verdicts and settlements for clients. Mongeluzzi is a founding partner of his firm, Saltz Mongeluzzi Barrett & Bendesky P.C., of Center City, and chairs its workplace-accident and product-liability practice groups. His trial trademarks: preparing meticulously and putting complex issues of legal negligence into simple, emotionally accessible language that jurors can relate to. "He is able to be very diplomatic, but he is also very aggressive when it comes to causes that he believes in," said Steven G. Wigrizer, a plaintiff's lawyer with the firm of Wapner Newman Wigrizer Brecher & Miller who has known Mongeluzzi for decades.

Chester Upland School District officials, in federal court Wednesday hoping to receive assurances that they will have enough money to educate 700 special-education students this fall, painted a grim picture of the district's finances. District officials told U.S. District Judge Michael Baylson that Chester Upland will end up the year owing charter schools, vendors, and special-education providers about $29 million that it cannot pay. The district, they said, will receive only $17 million to $18 million this school year from the state.