Ferman

A Montgomery County prosecutor has lashed out at defense motions filed on behalf of a former Norristown police officer accused of sexual assault that seek to make an issue of the two women's sexual histories. "It's a very pathetic and desperate attempt to blacken the character of two victims of a very serious crime," said Assistant District Attorney Risa V. Ferman. Claude LaCombe, 28, was fired from the Norristown Police Department Feb. 5. He is scheduled to go on trial today on charges including attempted rape and involuntary deviate sexual intercourse.

Officials in Montgomery County announced criminal charges today against a Philadelphia man who was shot by police Monday as he allegedly reached for an officer's gun during an arrest in Springfield Township. District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman identified the suspect as Isaac Michael Holmes, 32, of Murdoch Road. The police officers involved in the incident were not identified. The 6-foot-2, 205-pound man was charged with aggravated assault, criminal trespass, disarming a law enforcement officer and related offenses.

THREE WEEKS to the day before her death Monday night, 9-year-old Skyler Kauffman stood terrified in her killer's bathroom, police said, surrounded by pictures of naked women hanging from the walls. The man who allegedly would go on to take her innocence and her life, James Troutman, had invited Skyler and her friend to use his bathroom at Souderton Gardens Apartments, where they all lived, on April 18, according to court documents. The girls went willingly, but when they saw the pictures, when Troutman offered to show them his "bird," and when they realized that he had locked the apartment door behind them, they ran away and told their parents, according to court documents.

FOR THREE DAYS, Raghunandan "Ragu" Yandamuri seemed the most caring of friends. After someone killed Satyavathi Venna and kidnapped her 10-month-old granddaughter, Saanvi, from the family's King of Prussia apartment Monday, Yandamuri attended a candlelight vigil and helped create and distribute fliers offering a reward for the baby's safe return. To show support for the family, he even visited the Upper Merion Police Department, where Saanvi's parents, Venkata Venna and Chenchu Latha Punuru, camped out with investigators, desperately waiting for any word of their missing infant.

Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman brought criminal charges Thursday against a couple who allegedly enrolled their child in the Lower Moreland Township School District when they lived in Philadelphia. Hamlet and Olesia Garcia were charged with theft of services and conspiracy to commit theft of services. Tuition payments for an out-of-district child attending the Lower Moreland schools would have cost $10,753 a year, Ferman said. Michael Cassidy, a Huntingdon Valley lawyer representing the Garcias, said his clients were innocent.

The investigation involved wiretaps and electronic surveillance of cellphones — including analysis of 30,000 records on one phone number alone — but a major break in the case came in an old-fashioned, low-tech letter that arrived via U.S. mail. It turned out to be a critical piece in a local and federal probe that culminated in the arrest of 32 Montgomery County and Philadelphia residents on charges of manufacturing, selling, and using methamphetamines. "I get a good volume of mail, and some of it you can't make any sense out of," said Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman, who announced the arrests Tuesday.

Norristown is home to two unfortunate trends - violent crime and witness silence. Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman and Norristown Police Chief Russell Bono are hoping that a $5,000 reward will prod people who may have information in the slaying of Ryan Ladson-Singleton to talk to authorities. Ladson-Singleton, 21, was found in the early morning of Oct. 20 on a Norrsitown sidewalk on Green Street after being shot multiple times. He was pronounced dead at the Hospital of the University of Pennsylvania, with an autopsy finding he had died from gunshot wounds to the head and torso.

Two men have been charged with murder in a March 22 slaying outside Brian's Cafe in Pottstown, the Montgomery County district attorney's office said today. The suspects were identified as Michael Hinton, 26, of Philadelphia, in custody since the day of the incident, and his cousin, Maurice Andrews, Jr., 19, of Pottstown, who remains at large. They have been charged with first-, second- and third-degree murder and related offenses in the shooting death of Victor E.B. Baez, 28. District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said that both men had gone to the cafe with weapons.

A Pottstown man who a girl says raped her more than 100 times over six years, beginning when she was 7, was sentenced yesterday to 5 1/2 to 15 years in state prison. "As a husband and a father, my reaction would be that you should be sentenced to the state penitentiary for forever and a day," Montgomery County Judge William R. Carpenter told Eric Scott Fisher. "However, as a judge I must follow the law. " Fisher, a tall 23-year-old with close-cropped hair and a patch of blond stubble on his chin, pleaded guilty in May to rape, corruption of minors, and related charges.