State AG Criticizes Judge Who Re-Sentenced 'Observer-Reporter' Sports Editor

By: The state attorney general's office said Wednesday it will steer suspects in its Internet child-predator stings around a western Pennsylvania county where a judge has twice issued a sentence in a four-year-old case that prosecutors consider far too light.

Investigators will continue to prosecute child-predator cases from Westmoreland County, but will have to maneuver sting suspects into other jurisdictions, said Kevin Harley, a spokesman for Attorney General Tom Corbett.

Harley said prosecutors have had "a long tortured history" with the Westmoreland County case.

"When you have a judge that we believe didn't follow the law and ... doesn't take child-predator cases as seriously as the attorney general's office does, then we think these cases should be tried and sentenced before judges that follow the law," Harley said.

The announcement of Corbett's decision came after Westmoreland County Judge Richard E. McCormick Jr. re-sentenced former newspaper sports editor Thomas Rose on Tuesday to the same four-year probation term the judge had imposed three years ago.

Rose, 56, of Delmont, was convicted of a misdemeanor charge for chatting online in September 2005 with a police officer posing as a 12-year-old girl after McCormick invalidated the jury's guilty verdict on a related felony charge.

Superior Court had sent the case back to McCormick to reinstate a felony count and re-sentence Rose.

McCormick's office said Wednesday he would not comment.

Rose's lawyer, Robert C. Brady, accused the attorney general's office of "a personal assault upon the judge" and improper forum-shopping. He said state appeals courts were designed to handle disputes about whether judges have followed the law.

"This is a personal attack which puts politics above prosecution," Brady said. "They're making a terrible ... mistake. And they're being very, very unfair to a judge who has done his job very well."

Rose is from Washington County, but traveled to Westmoreland County as part of the crime, Harley said.

Rose formerly worked at the Observer-Reporter in Washington, Pa. Brady said Rose is being treated for Internet addiction and is writing a book on the subject.