The arsons made Coatesville’s street business tough, it’s getting tough again.

When the ATF and undercover State Troopers were all over Coatesville looking for arsonists during the time of the fires it was hard on Coatesville pharmaceutical entrepreneurs. The white kids from outside Coatesville were being stopped by police. The street boys allegedly had to hire extra lookouts, adding to overhead. Little kids just above toddler age didn’t hand small bags directly to people in cars anymore, “curb service” style. They tossed them under cars at the curb to be picked up moments later. Business was so bad that some pharmaceutical entrepreneurs allegedly had to get 9 to 5 payroll type jobs. 


The drug business is tough again in Coatesville. Richard Legree Jr., the first politically connected person went down a few years ago. It was alleged that then CCRC Area 14 Chairman Richard Legree Sr. went around to every magistrate judge in Chester County when he heard that his son was arrested, until he discovered that Richard Jr. had been brought to the Federal Detention center in Philly. Richard had “name recognition in Federal Court but it allegedly was a different sort of “name recognition”. Just recently Richard Legree Jr's second cousin Willy Suber was brought to the Federal Detention Center in Philly and Lisa Johnson and John Tinson were arrested last year.


I think it is unfortunate that Lisa and John went into the Chester County Court System. For instance, Richard Legree Jr’s bail was nothing. Actually he was held without bail in the Federal Detention facility on Arch Street in Philadelphia. John Tinson and Lisa Johnson’s bail was also sort of nothing, but not the same kind of nothing as Legree’s detention and then imprisonment. “$5,000 unsecured bail” for Johnson and Tinson equals nothing, that is no money at all was put up for bail. 


By the way, you have to ask someone in City Hall if Tinson continued to be paid his salary until July or not. 


I think that Richard Legree Jr., Lisa Johnson, John Tinson and "Willy" Suber are just the beginning.  I think that even if Lisa and John are declared innocent in Chester County Courts other allegedly politically connected people will fall. I think that more arrests are coming and that the alleged imbedded and politically connected Coatesville drug edifice is being dismantled piece by piece. 


I think it couldn’t happen at a better time. Just when the drug business is going dry again in Coatesville because of police activity, it looks like a resurrection of retail and 9 to 5 jobs is coming to replace the drug selling underground economy. Business people with legal businesses are taking another look at Coatesville as a retail anchor for central and western Chester County. Just putting people away isn't enough. People have to have a career choice other than being a corner boy. The apparent growth of new retail business in Coatesville might be that other choice.


By the way, Richard Legree Jr. is back. The document below has the conditions of his 8 year supervised release under the direction of a United States Probation Officer: 

https___ecf.paed.uscourts.gov_cgi-bin_show_temp.pl_file=4886231-0-.pdf