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WILKES-BARRE — A Republican running for mayor and the Democrat hopeful for district attorney are lobbing joint allegations of illegal use of public office at Luzerne County District Attorney Stefanie Salavantis.
“You’re not going to campaign with my tax dollars,” Frank Sorick said Wednesday.
Sorick, running for mayor of Wilkes-Barre and president of the Wilkes-Barre City Taxpayers Association, claimed Wednesday in a letter addressed to Salavantis that an email exchange indicates her office used county resources in March to pull “confidential” files related to an animal cruelty case district attorney candidate Vito DeLuca handled in 2003 as a public defense attorney.
The email, which Sorick says was sent between March 4 and 5, says the files would be needed “by Monday.”
Sorick claims the records were pulled as a research effort against DeLuca, who had just received a campaign endorsement related to animal rights.
The allegations warrant a criminal investigation, Sorick wrote. His letter goes on to demand Salavantis refer the matter to the state Office of Attorney General and provide him with written proof of her office’s compliance.
Contacted for comment, DeLuca confirmed his support of the allegations and his involvement in bringing them to light.
“Our cities are turning into war zones; she’s complaining her office doesn’t have resources and this is how she uses those resources,” DeLuca said.
“Maybe someone should ask Vito who the prosecutor was,” Salavantis responded. “The thought of using one 12-year-old guilty plea as a representation of something in a 2015 race for district attorney is grasping at straws.”
The case’s prosecutor, she said, was now First Assistant District Attorney Sam Sanguedolce, and it was the only animal cruelty case he had handled. Salavantis said her office sought the file as reference for a meeting she and Sanguedolce had with the SPCA regarding a pending animal cruelty case.
Salavantis said the meeting was to occur on the Monday by which she required the records in question.
Case documents, which are public record, indicate Sanguedolce served as prosecutor and that DeLuca represented the defendant in the particular case, though free online records list another attorney as the attorney of record. DeLuca said this must have been done by mistake.
Behind the retrieval of the email, both he and Sorick said, was vocal blogger and city critic Mark Robbins.
Robbins filed a right-to-know request first with the DA’s office seeking the email, but was denied, DeLuca and Sorick said. He then filed another with the county and received the message.
DeLuca said he has known about the exchange since July, but decided not to come forward until he felt certain the district attorney’s office had no legitimate use for the file.
The claims come three weeks after Robbins, 52, of Forty Fort, pleaded guilty in Luzerne County Court to a summary harassment charge, according to court records. The charge stemmed from allegations that in September 2013 he made several unwanted, profane and harassing phone calls to a woman.
