Plea Bargain

Penn State starting safety Anthony Scirrotto's legal troubles stemming from an alleged apartment invasion last year likely will end in a plea bargain next week while the other defendant in the case is headed to trial after picking a jury Monday, according to the Centre Daily Times. Scirrotto, 21, of West Deptford, N.J., faces a count of criminal trespass and a summary harassment count for the alleged incident police said involved almost two dozen members of the PSU football team.

Charged with crimes that could have sent him to prison for up to 20 years for hitting a police officer with his car, the Rev. Martin Fry, a Baptist minister, accepted a plea bargain from Bucks County prosecutors yesterday and was sentenced to 12 months' probation. Mr. Fry also was asked to apologize to the officer in open court - prompting Mr. Fry's wife, Carol, to punch open the courtroom doors and rage in the hallway: "No one said he was going to have to apologize!" Mr. Fry, 59, of Newtown, who with his wife operates the Noah's Ark Christian day-care center in Langhorne, was charged with two counts of felony assault and four misdemeanors.

Running back Kevin Mack of the Cleveland Browns pleaded guilty yesterday to using cocaine, in a plea bargain that included the dismissal of three related charges. With a series of one-word responses, Mack, who was arrested on June 28 in Cleveland, said he understood that the plea could result in a sentence of up to 18 months in prison. Judge Richard J. McMonagle of Cuyahoga County (Ohio) Common Pleas Court said he would sentence Mack after receiving a probation and drug-use report.

A 29-year-old West Chester man pleaded guilty yesterday to assaulting a woman after charges were withdrawn Monday against three others who had been accused of aiding him. Yesterday, Damon Wylie was sentenced to six to 23 months in Chester County prison for committing one count of simple assault, a misdemeanor, under the plea bargain negotiated with Assistant District Attorney Stephen J. Kelly. Wylie had been charged with sexually assaulting a 24-year-old Coatesville woman over eight hours on March 22 in an apartment at the Oak Street complex in Coatesville.

In 1986, Chris Kwortnik, then a freshman at North Penn High School, lost his first-round match in the PIAA state wrestling tournament to Manheim Central's Scott Henry. Over the next three years, Kwortnik won 109 consecutive matches - two of them over Henry. He finished his high school career with a record of 141-1 and three straight PIAA state titles. He was considered the best wrestler Pennsylvania has produced. Yet in his senior year Kwortnik would still watch videotape of the bout with Henry just to think about how he could have won it. Now Kwortnik, along with his brother, Jeff, is facing something more serious.

Canucks star Todd Bertuzzi could be on the verge of a plea bargain involving the assault charge he faces for sucker-punching Colorado Avalanche forward Steve Moore earlier this year, the Vancouver Province reported yesterday. The two sides are very close to a deal, the newspaper reported, citing unidentified sources close to discussions between prosecutors and Bertuzzi's defense team. Bertuzzi was charged with assault after slugging Moore from behind and driving his face into the ice during a game March 8. Moore was hospitalized with three fractured vertebrae, facial cuts, postconcussion symptoms and amnesia.

Two state troopers charged in the shooting that is at the center of New Jersey's racial-profiling controversy have reached an agreement allowing them to plead guilty to lesser offenses, a defense lawyer said yesterday. James Kenna and John Hogan will go to Superior Court in Trenton on Monday to plead guilty to misconduct for not following proper police procedures and filing false reports, sources familiar with the deal said. They are expected to avoid jail time under the agreement, but lose their state police jobs and are barred from seeking employment as police officers in the state.

Two men accused of taking an eight-ton bulldozer on a three-mile, early morning joyride through Newtown Township in January will plead guilty to amended charges of the unauthorized use of a motor vehicle, criminal conspiracy and criminal mischief, according to their attorneys. Michael J. Funk, 23, of the 500 block of Linton Hill Road, Newtown, and Robert G. Engle, 23, of the 200 block of Newtown-Richboro Road, Richboro, have also agreed to reimburse four property owners who suffered damages from the incident.

It's no shock that the International Brotherhood of Teamsters has just rejected a plea bargain in its forthcoming racketeering case. Since the union's leaders don't like the sweeping reforms that federal prosecutors are seeking in court, an out-of-court settlement that's nearly as stringent doesn't hold much appeal. That's fine, because a trial should serve the public interest as well. Day after day, a trial can inform all Americans (including 1.6 million Teamsters) about a union whose leaders, according to a 1986 report of the President's Commission on Organized Crime, "have been firmly under the influence of organized crime since the 1950s.

A Montgomery County man accused of running a large, sophisticated cocaine business from a Towamencin Township home yesterday accepted a plea bargain that will send him to prison for at least seven years. Clark "Carlos" Cardona, 24, was arrested last August in his $250,000 rented home, which was stocked with $50,000 in cash, $60,000 in Panamanian casino chips and 4.4 pounds of cocaine. Such were the trappings, authorities contended, of an enterprise that brought in $8,000 a week from drug sales to mostly suburban, upper-middle-class users.

WASHINGTON - The Supreme Court, noting that virtually all criminal cases are settled through plea deals, has ruled for the first time that defendants have a right to competent advice from a lawyer on whether to accept an offer to plead guilty in exchange for a lighter sentence. At a minimum, the court said, the defendant must be told of any formal offers from a prosecutor that would result in a favorable deal. The pair of 5-4 decisions handed down Wednesday could broadly affect the nation's criminal-justice system because of the importance of plea deals.

Dharun Ravi, a promising college student and computer whiz kid, gambled his future on a Middlesex County jury. It appears he lost. The 20-year-old Plainsboro, N.J., resident was convicted of all 15 counts Friday in the Rutgers University webcam spying case, which generated international attention and became a rallying point for gay-rights advocates concerned about the bullying and harassment of gay teens. Ravi was found guilty of invasion of privacy and bias-intimidation charges for using his laptop webcam to spy on his roommate in an intimate encounter with another man on Sept.

CAMP PENDLETON, CALIF. - Marine Staff Sgt. Frank Wuterich will serve no time in the brig for his guilty plea in the killing of 24 Iraqis in 2005, a military judge said yesterday. The announcement by Lt. Col. David Jones came after a sentencing hearing at Camp Pendleton in which Wuterich took responsibility for the killings and expressed his remorse to the families of those killed. Jones said the plea bargain approved by Lt. Gen. Thomas Waldhauser called for no jail time.

A former city council staffer, a businessman and an attorney had their convictions in a 2009 Philadelphia corruption trial vacated Wednesday by a federal appeals court. The fate of the three is now up to Philadelphia U.S. Attorney Zane D. Memeger, who will have to decide whether to retry the men or resolve the case through a plea bargain. The defendants, including Christopher G. Wright, 47, the ex-chief of staff to former City Councilman Jack Kelly, were convicted in U.S. District Court of honest services fraud, mail fraud and conspiracy.

A judge sentenced three men Tuesday who pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter in October for beating a man to death after a 2009 Phillies game in an argument over spilled beer. The defendants, who had been bused to the ballpark from Moe's Tavern in Fishtown, had been charged with murder in the death of David W. Sale Jr., 22, of Lansdale, but accepted a plea bargain after a mistrial. Tuesday, to the anger of Sale's family, they received terms ranging from two to 18 years. Sale had been at a Saturday afternoon game against the St. Louis Cardinals as part of a friend's bachelor party.

NEW BRUNSWICK. N.J. - Dharun Ravi said no. The former Rutgers University student, facing bias-crime and invasion-of-privacy charges after secretly recording his roommate in a sexual encounter with another man, rejected a plea deal Friday that would have guaranteed that he not serve any time in prison. "It was a principle of law, a principle of life. He's not guilty," Ravi's lawyer, Steven Altman, said after a 40-minute hearing before Superior Court Judge Glenn Berman. Ravi, 19, rejected an earlier plea deal in October that would have cut his potential 10-year prison sentence to five years or less.

The family of Tyler Clementi, the Rutgers University student who committed suicide after discovering that his roommate had allegedly used a webcam to spy on his intimate dorm-room encounter with another man, plans to return to the university's main campus next week for a symposium on social media. The Tyler Clementi Foundation, which Clementi's parents set up in his memory after his death in September 2010, is cosponsoring the event with Rutgers. A lawyer for the family said Clementi's father, Joe, would make introductory remarks at the forum.