Norristown

Montgomery County stands to lose nearly $25 million in a Norristown redevelopment project gone sour, Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro said Tuesday. Under the previous administration, the county invested significant public grants and loan guarantees to redevelop the Logan Square shopping center. One office building was constructed, but it remains only half-occupied. The retail portion of the site is underutilized and run-down. "It's hard to see how it was ever viable. It's certainly not viable now," Shapiro said at a news conference.

On the eve his high school's bid for the New York state baseball championship, Elvin Soto took a bus to Norristown in search of a little magic. The 18-year-old from the Bronx thought he might find it in an airy factory on Washington Street whose product is a draw for an increasing number of ballplayers looking for a bit of the lightning that sends blasts off the bats of major-leaguers Shane Victorino and Josh Hamilton. The budding high school star is part of the fast-growing customer list of Rx Sport, launched just 18 months ago with the goal of using the secrets of luxury furniture-making to improve the lumber of the national pastime.

In a crowded sandwich-eating world of hoagies, grinders, subs, heroes, and po'boys, Norristown's own zep flies somewhat beneath the radar. But in certain quarters, the intensely local, seven-decade meat-on-a-roll tradition is so closely associated with its birthplace to qualify as the Montgomery County version of Proust's madeleine. "You take any Norristown kid from the '50s and you give him now, 50 years later, a zep," said Jerry Spinelli, 68, a children's book author and Norristown native, "and he will be transported back to his hometown.

Nobody was hurt - not even the family cat - but a roof fire in Norristown caused $75,000 worth of damage yesterday afternoon at a residence on Roberts Circle. Roofers had been working at the site, fire officials said.

There may not be a boys' basketball team in Southeastern Pennsylvania more overlooked than Norristown. The Eagles weren't taken seriously for much of last season before advancing to the PIAA Class AAAA state championship game. Although three starters returned to the team this season, critics thought this would be a rebuilding year. It turns out that people had better start paying closer attention to Norristown. The Eagles defeated Plymouth Whitemarsh, 45-41, in last night's Suburban One American first-place showdown at the Colonial Elementary School gym. "This victory means everything, because we are the underdog everywhere we go," Norristown senior Lorenzo Christmas said.

The trial of a "regular, hardworking guy" accused of corrupting Norristown's top administrator began yesterday with a hint of more questionable conduct in the local government. Thomas D. Carbo, a paving contractor from Devon, was indicted as part of a case brought last year against Norristown's former municipal administrator, Anthony Biondi. Biondi has pleaded guilty. Carbo is accused of helping Biondi hide a business relationship he maintained with Carbo and another contractor between 2001 and 2004, when Biondi awarded the businessmen more than $100,000 in paving and snow-plowing jobs.

Federal prosecutors yesterday concluded their investigation into municipal corruption in Norristown with the sentencing of two contractors accused of collusion with a local official. James H. Jones, a landscape contractor, received 10 months in prison for lying to a grand jury about his dealings with Norristown's former Administrator Anthony Biondi. Also sentenced was Lawrence Mazzerle, a paving contractor who cooperated in the investigation and received three months in prison and one year of house arrest.

These were happy times for Leonard E. "Skip" Morano. The 51-year-old Stanbridge Street resident had secured a steady job and had just asked Margret Schilling, 24, to marry him. The couple were planning a winter wedding, friends said. Friday, Schilling stopped by AJ's Pub & Grill in Norristown, as she often did, to meet Morano after he finished stocking the restaurant's storerooms and busing its tables. The walk home that evening was their last. According to police, a driver traveling 20 m.p.h.

With Eric Wiggins forcing Matt Carroll into his worst shooting performance of the season, Norristown rolled to a 68-49 home victory over Hatboro-Horsham last night. It was the Eagles' eighth straight win, and they remained undefeated against District 1 opponents this season. Wiggins, a 6-foot-3 forward, held the 6-6 Carroll, who was averaging just over 27 points per game, to 10 points on 3 for 14 shooting from the field. "Eric Wiggins is the best defensive player in the state," Norristown junior point guard Marques Green said.

Joseph Cicippio's family said they had hoped his new marriage to a Lebanese woman and his conversion to Islam would protect the Beirut university official from a capricious snatch by revolutionaries. But their fears nagged at them. And since the abduction of the 56-year-old Norristown native Sept. 12, the family has been clinging to a fervent hope that everything would work out all right - and a short glimpse of a shadowy Polaroid photo showing a thinner and tired Cicippio.

Montgomery County stands to lose nearly $25 million in a Norristown redevelopment project gone sour, Commissioners Chairman Josh Shapiro said Tuesday. Under the previous administration, the county invested significant public grants and loan guarantees to redevelop the Logan Square shopping center. One office building was constructed, but it remains only half-occupied. The retail portion of the site is underutilized and run-down. "It's hard to see how it was ever viable. It's certainly not viable now," Shapiro said at a news conference.

Film New This Week: Midnight's Children (*** out of four stars) Deepa Mehta's adaptation of Salman Rushdie's novel tells the parallel stories of Saleem (Satya Bhabha) and his subcontinent. Born in 1947 as India and Pakistan become independent, his colorful, partitioned turbulent life mirrors his nation(s). 2 hrs., 6 mins. No MPAA rating (brief nudity, discreet sex, violence) - Carrie Rickey Music James Blake. James Blake caused a stir with his 2010 self-titled debut when he took lessons learned as a dubstep DJ producer and applied them to a sensitively soulful singer-songwriter approach.

The shallow fly ball seemed like a sure third out on Thursday afternoon as Norristown softball coach Jim McCarthy waved his arms wildly down the third-base line. "We were off to the races," McCarthy said. Good thing they were. The ball dropped in with two out in the sixth inning, and two Norristown runners hustled home to lift the Eagles past visiting Springfield (Montco), 7-4, in a Suburban One American game. Monica Levins scored the first run on Amy Iorio's infield fly, and Krista Fineran slid home to score the second.

Two Pennsylvania representatives and the Montgomery County district attorney on Tuesday criticized a Norristown ordinance that was meant to reduce disorderly conduct, but that can penalize domestic-violence victims for calling the police. The ordinance, as initially written, allowed the municipality to revoke rental licenses if police were called to a rental property three times within four months in response to disorderly conduct reports. It has been rewritten, but still can punish renters who call for police too many times.

A Montgomery County Court jury Wednesday found a drug dealer guilty of murder in a trial that featured drugs, debt, a Haitian gang, and a confidential federal informant. The jury said Luckenson Desrivieres, 25, was guilty of first-degree murder in the June stabbing death of Shamara Hill, 26, and the third-degree stabbing death of Hill's boyfriend, Marc Winchell Estiverne. Desrivieres admitted to killing the two last June at the Norristown boardinghouse where they all stayed. The killings happened, Desrivieres said, after he overheard his friend Estiverne, 23, talking on the phone to someone about a snitch and feared Estiverne meant him. The defense said Estiverne belonged to the Haitian Bloods gang in Newark, N.J. Desrivieres, it emerged during the trial, was working with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security to bust up the gang by wearing a wire and hidden camera while buying large amounts of crack cocaine.

A Montgomery County Court jury deliberated for more than six hours Tuesday on murder charges against Luckenson Desrivieres, who stabbed two friends at a Norristown boardinghouse in June 2012. As of 9:30 p.m., the jurors had not decided and deliberations were suspended for the night. Desrivieres, 25, argued that he stabbed Marc Winchell Estiverne, 23, and Shamara Hill, 26, in self-defense after they attacked him for "snitching" on members of a Haitian Bloods gang in Newark, N.J. Attorneys offered closing statements Tuesday, the prosecution depicting Desrivieres as a cold-blooded street thug and the defense portraying a reformed man whose life was in danger.

Andrei A. Iakimenko , doing business as Mid-Atlantic Roofing & Siding , also known as Andrei Lakimenko , 726 Durham Pl., Bensalem; Chapter 7; no schedules available. Lehigh Valley Properties Inc. ; Chapter 11; no schedules available. Y-Carbon Inc. , 2495 Boulevard of the Generals, Building B, Norristown; Chapter 11; no schedules available.   GC Berlin L.L.C. , 526 Rt. 73, West Berlin; Chapter 11; no schedules available. SOURCES: The Legal Intelligencer; U.S. Bankruptcy Court for the District of New Jersey.

Jurors were warned to brace themselves Monday as the defendant in a Norristown murder trial demonstrated a shoulder dislocation. Luckenson Desrivieres, 25, testified Thursday that his shoulder was dislocated during a fight with Marc Winchell Estiverne on June 14, 2012. He said his left arm was hanging limp as Estiverne and his girlfriend, Shamara Hill, continued to punch him. Eventually, Desrivieres testified Thursday, he was able to pull the shoulder back into place, grab a knife from under his mattress, and stab them to death.

Chester County District Attorney Thomas P. Hogan announced Thursday that his office would seek the death penalty against Shakeem L. Carter in the Feb. 12 slaying of Kevin Allen Jr., 17, in a North Coventry Township apartment. Carter, 20, of Norristown, was arrested Feb. 27 and charged with murder, abuse of corpse, robbery of $350, arson, and related offenses. The District Attorney's Office said Allen was stabbed 20 times in the head, back and neck, and his throat was slit and his body was set on fire.

Testimony in a Norristown double-murder trial this week stretched far beyond Montgomery County, from a single crime scene to a vast network of interstate drug rings, federal investigations, wiretaps, confidential informants, and "snitching. " Luckenson Desrivieres, 25, has admitted that he stabbed to death two friends - Marc Winchell Estiverne, 23, and Estiverne's girlfriend, Shamara Hill, 26 - in the boardinghouse where they were staying. Prosecutors argued that the killing was premeditated, and presented a witness who said Desrivieres had talked about robbing and killing Estiverne over a debt.