Pennsylvania News Briefs

CAMP HILL

Official charged with DUI in state vehicle

A senior official in the Pennsylvania Department of Labor and Industry was charged with drunken driving and hit-and-run after an accident involving his state-issued vehicle.

Allen Cwalina, 49, was arrested by Lower Allen Township Police at his home near Harrisburg after the Nov. 26 accident, which damaged a parked car.

Police said they were checking the area of the parked car when they noticed a Chevrolet Impala in a driveway with a flat tire, bent rim and other damage. Cwalina, the department’s $122,000-a-year deputy secretary for administration, was visibly intoxicated when he answered the door, police said.

He admitted he drove into the parked car and tests showed his blood-alcohol content was .20 percent, or more than twice the legal limit for driving, police said.

LANSFORD

Priest faces public lewdness charge

A Roman Catholic priest was charged with public lewdness at a nude beach in New Jersey over the summer, weeks before leaving his post at an eastern Pennsylvania church, a newspaper reported Thursday.

Parishioners at St. Katharine Drexel Catholic Church in Carbon County were told that Monsignor Lawrence J. Bukaty, 58, stepped down as their pastor in late July for health reasons.

Court documents indicate that Bukaty was charged with public lewdness in June after a park ranger saw him fondling himself at clothing-optional Gunnison Beach in Sandy Hook, N.J., The Morning Call of Allentown reported.

Bukaty pleaded guilty July 30 to a reduced charge of disorderly conduct and agreed to pay a $525 fine and stay out of Sandy Hook, according to court records.

CLEARFIELD

Commission: Attack by bears unprovoked

The Pennsylvania State Game Commission says a hunter did nothing wrong to provoke an attack by two bears in central Pennsylvania last month.

The 39-year-old hunter, whose name is not being released, is recovering from puncture wounds, bites and gashes in the Nov. 25 attack near Clearfield. The injuries are not life-threatening. Game officials say the hunter was attacked when he wound up between two bears as he was following fresh tracks in the snow.

STROUDSBURG

Father faces trial for death of toddler

An eastern Pennsylvania man accused of slapping his 2-year-old daughter so hard that it killed her will go on trial on a murder charge.

A jury was chosen Wednesday and opening statements are scheduled Monday in Monroe County Court for the trial of Mckinley Warren Jr.

Warren is charged with causing the death of his daughter, Jessica Bock, in 2000.

SELINSGROVE

Man pleads to killing girlfriend’s stepfather

A central Pennsylvania man could be spending at least 20 years in prison after pleading guilty to murder.

Twenty-seven-year old Travis Graham told a Snyder County judge on Wednesday he fired the shot in March that killed his girlfriend’s stepfather, 46-year-old Jeffrey Stock.

District Attorney Michael Sholley says Graham had been arguing with Stock’s stepdaughter. Sholley said Graham went home and got a hunting rifle, drove to a spot near Stock’s home, used a scope to see Stock smoking on his back porch — and fired one shot.