Whatever happened to …?

One of the bad raps that we journalists often get from the public is that we don’t follow up on important news stories. I agree with our critics. We don’t do this nearly enough, which is why I am often asked “Whatever happened to (fill in the blank)?

Well, today, I am going to update five of the columns I had written about since 2015 when I first began opinion-writing for the Times News. Note: I do not write editorials, which represent the viewpoints of the newspaper’s ownership and management.

What makes certain events newsworthy? I have come up with a contrived acronym for the seven characteristics of news: HITCUPP (human interest, impact, timeliness, conflict, unusual nature of a story, proximity and prominence). The more of these elements present in a news story, the more interest the public has.

• Kathleen Kane: This once rising star in the Democratic Party from Scranton served as the first woman and first Democrat ever elected attorney general in the commonwealth. (Women previously served in the office, but they were appointed.) Kane served from 2013 until her resignation on Aug. 17, 2016. Kane was charged with perjury, conspiracy, obstruction of justice and suppression of information.

The state Supreme Court suspended her law license in 2015. Nearly a year later, a jury convicted her of all charges. After her appeals were exhausted, she reported last November to Montgomery County Correctional Institution to serve a 10- to 23-month sentence. Kane was released early for good behavior on July 31, after having served eight months and two days in prison.

• J. Michael Eakin: This former member of the Pennsylvania Supreme Court was caught up in an ethics inquiry surrounding his receiving and resending racist and misogynistic emails in 2015. It was former state Attorney General Kane who released these and many other emails in a scandalous dispute with the judicial branch. Eakin, a Republican, resigned on March 15, 2016.

That same month, the Court of Judicial Discipline fined Eakin $50,000 but allowed him to keep his $183,000-a-year state pension. The six-member board said that Eakin had undermined public confidence in the state’s judiciary. Agreed. So why should we taxpayers pay his pension?

• Kim Davis: The former Democratic Rowan County, Kentucky, clerk, who made international headlines by defying a federal court order to issue marriage licenses to same-sex couples in 2015, has wound up costing the state $224,000.

A federal appeals court made the ruling on Aug. 16 that Kentucky must pay the couples’ legal fees for bringing suit against Davis, the county and the state. A landmark decision by the U.S. Supreme Court in 2015 allowed such marriages, but Davis cited “God’s Authority” as her reason for breaking the law. After appeals all the way to the U.S. Supreme Court failed, she still refused to issue the licenses. She was held in contempt of court and spent five nights in jail for her defiance. Although she was hailed as a hero by top Republicans, including Sen. Ted Cruz of Texas, Davis, running as a Republican, was defeated in a re-election bid last year by David Ermold, one of those to whom Davis had denied a marriage license.

• Sen. Lisa Boscola’s ice-removal bill: The bill, which Boscola has introduced each legislative session since 2005, would allow police to stop drivers who fail to remove snow and ice from their vehicles and write them a ticket for up to $75.

After Boscola reintroduced the bill in February, along with co-sponsors including John Yudichak, D-Carbon, and Mario Scavello, R-Monroe, it was assigned to the Transportation Committee. Senate leadership re-referred it to the Appropriations Committee on June 19, but there has been no further action in the more than two months since then.

• GoFundMe homeless man scam: Sentencing for Katelyn McClure, 29, is scheduled for Sept. 16, according to the Burlington County, New Jersey, Prosecutor’s Office. McClure is one of the three key figures in the infamous GoFundMe scam also involving her former boyfriend and a homeless veteran. She faces up to four years in state prison.

McClure admitted that she and then-boyfriend, Mark D’Amico, organized the GoFundMe scheme to help homeless veteran Johnny Bobbitt, who McClure said gave her his last $20 after she ran out of gas near Philadelphia. McClure admits the story was bogus.

The story tugged at the public’s heartstrings, and they donated more than $400,000, which was shared by the couple, not with the homeless Bobbitt, who filed suit. He maintained that he got very little of the donations. GoFundMe officials returned all of the money to the donors.

Bobbitt, who admitted he helped in the scam, was sentenced in Burlington County Court to five years probation in April, entered a drug-treatment program and agreed to testify against the co-conspirators. If he violates probation, he will go to jail for five years.

D’Amico has pleaded not guilty. He is scheduled to appear in court this month.

By Bruce Frassinelli | tneditor@tnonline.com