Cirko
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WILKES-BARRE — A Hanover Township woman charged with spitting and coughing on food items inside a supermarket shortly after a state of emergency was declared for the coronavirus pandemic is mentally competent to stand trial.
Margaret Cirko, 36, of Tomko Avenue, underwent a competency examination based on concerns from her attorney, Thomas S. Cometa, who claimed Cirko exhibited confused thoughts and behavior prior to a court proceeding last year.
A report by Dr. Nancy E. Miller, a license psychologist, submitted Oct. 26, 2020, determined Cirko is competent to stand trial because she “presently meets Pennsylvania’s legal requirements to stand trial,” according to a pre-trial motion filed Monday by Cometa.
Miller indicated she did not feel Cirko’s mental health concerns were a contributing factor and she tends to minimize her behavior by attributing it to her drinking, the pre-trial motion says.
Cometa filed the pre-trial motion in anticipation of Cirko’s trial scheduled to begin June 22 before President Judge Michael T. Vough.
Cirko was charged by Hanover Township police when she entered Gerrity’s Supermarket on Sans Souci Parkway and allegedly spat and coughed on food items while yelling, “I have the virus, you’re all going to get sick,” on March 25, 2020, according to court records.
About three weeks earlier, Gov. Tom Wolf declared a state of emergency due to the coronavirus pandemic, which heightened the charges against Cirko.
Cometa has been fighting to have one of those charges — bomb threats with the underlying premise weapons of mass destruction — dismissed, arguing the criminal statute of bomb threats does not include bodily fluids.
“Margaret never reported the existence or potential existence of a weapon of mass destruction, nor did she ever threaten to place or set a weapon of mass destruction, and as a consequence, the essential elements for this offense are missing,” Cometa wrote in the pre-trial motion.
Cometa, along with statements made after Cirko’s preliminary hearing held June 25, 2020, by now-District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce and Assistant District Attorney Drew McLaughlin, noted that there is no court precedent which addresses what constitutes a weapon of mass destruction.
Sanguedolce stated he believed the Cirko case will set precedent on similar cases across Pennsylvania and the nation going forward.
Cometa in his pre-trial motion argues that some type of bomb, container or device is needed to meet the element of weapons of mass destruction.
“The statute does not clearly indicate a person’s body or bodily fluids were intended to satisfy the requirements for this crime,” Cometa wrote.
Sanguedolce previously stated all the statute requires is a “threat,” which he alleged was Cirko’s spitting and coughing while yelling “I have the virus.”
“(Prosecutor) seeks to stretch the notion of a weapon of mass destruction and suggest that a person’s body can be the weapon of mass destruction under the statute and the threat a person has a natural virus coming from their body by coughing and spitting is the biological agent,” Cometa stated.
Prosecutors are likely to respond to Cometa’s pre-trial motion.
Joe Fasula, co-owner of Gerrity’s, said after the alleged incident that an estimated $35,000 worth of food had to be discarded.
In unrelated cases, Cirko is facing charges of defiant trespass and disorderly conduct when she allegedly refused to leave a church in Warrior Run on March 31 and yelled she is a “Child of God,” and, “Jesus, won’t you talk to me?”