Constable probe widens to include court staff

It was bound to happen.
Sources now say in addition to at least three constables facing criminal charges, a court secretary also has been caught in the Web of deceit.
As the story goes, the constable makes nice with the court staff. In the case of one court, the constables are required by the judge to donate a couple hundred dollars per year to buy Christmas presents and other gifts for the court secretaries.
The premise was because they do all the paperwork for the constabulary.
Here's the real reason:
A constable makes nice with a court secretary and she sets aside tickets for the constable.
Innocent and unwitting civilians come in to voluntary pay a ticket that has been sent to the court as a scofflaw for failure to pay. The person, alarmed by the letter from the court, dashes up to the window to pay and avoid a warrant being issued for them.
The secretary tells the civilian they are going to be charged court fees. The court fees are actually the process serving fee paid to the constable as if the constable had personally contacted the civilian and told them to come to court. Each time a warrant is issued, a constable is assigned to the warrant. If a different constable serves the warrant, the court staff changes the warrant to indicate who served the warrant.
The civilian doesn't know any better and just wants to pay the fee and get the hell out of there and back to work.
All the walk-in tickets the secretary collects that day sit on her desk until her favorite constable comes in and she gives them to him to sign. She then goes into the court computer and changes the computer record to show her buddy's name on the ticket so that her buddy and not the original constable assigned to the ticket gets paid for it.
When the constable signs the ticket he's swearing under penalty of perjury that he was assigned the warrant.
The constable then submits that paperwork to the Berks County Controller's office for payment.
Constables are elected officials and don't earn a salary.
Every penny they get they must earn by performing services for the court.
Unless of course, they marry a court secretary and get her to set aside parking tickets for them all day and show up at the end of the day and rake in the cash.
That's one way to earn $250,000 per year.

Back from the boobyhatch

I had been voluntarily incarcerated against my will in an upscale nervous hospital in Berks County, PA, when I received a dispatch from my colleagues advising me that things in Reading, PA, were going to hell in a hand basket.
They had the official announcement that a Doubletree Hotel and conference center, complete with its own parking garage, was coming to Penn Street. It'd be located across the street from the beautiful Sovereign Center.
They also announced valuable seed money had been set aside for the Goggleworks Apartments, across Second Street from the ever popular Goggleworks Center for the Arts.
Then they opened the R/C IMAX theatre complex at Second and Washington streets and the shit hit the fan.
Some genius in the marketing department had the clever idea of offering $1 admissions for the entire four-day weekend.
Well the natives got in there knowing they'd probably never be back and went apeshit. Throwing food, picking fights, letting their kids run around screaming and playing tag in the theaters while the movies were playing.
When the theater people try to expel the offenders they refused to leave and picked a fight with Reading's finest who were stationed in big numbers right outside the movie house. They had the mobile command center there for chrissakes!
The cops had to taser two kids and sprayed a mob of them with pepper spray.
What a bunch of ignorant slobs.
It was a disgrace.
A couple of short-sleeved assistant theater managers got fired in the wake of that debacle I'll tell you.
But that's peanuts compared to what's been going on with the Pennsylvania State Constables and how they've been raping the taxpayers for the past many years.
That's what really made me pull the IVs out and get back to work.
I'm told that three constables will be charged with theft on Wednesday, Aug. 27, and that the probe is ongoing.
The hope is, some of the constables, facing jail time and public humiliation, not to mention losing their elected positions, will roll over on the district judges who are masterminding the crimes.
This is not to say that all constables and district judges are bad. Far be it from me to utter that truth.
The question also remains as to the resolve of the investigators and their bosses. Do they have the stomach for a probe that touches on some of the biggest fundraisers in the Democratic party.
Let's see what unfolds on Wednesday and take it from there.