I think things are changing in Chester County in regards to Republican control of, well, just about everything in Chester County.

First of all the alleged misconduct was not about protecting some campaign contributor. I believe that Ms. Arnold deserves some slack because she was a mother trying to protect her sons.  I think she may have gone about protecting her family in the wrong manner. But I think Judge Arnold believed that she could get away with allegedly fudging the records. That she did not get away with it is what I think is important. 

There are Republicans here that have not gotten “the memo” about protecting other Republicans. The memo that says it’s just not the same as when Teddy Rubino controlled things. 

Maybe you didn't notice, but it took a while for the local newspapers to write about Judge Arnold. 

AP picked up the story in Harrisburg otherwise I think you might not have seen it this quickly in any local papers. 
See:

Coatesville Dems

WEDNESDAY, FEBRUARY 15, 2012

Downingtown District Judge Rita Arnold Chargedwith misconduct

Check the time stamps.

I think that without internet communication no one would have known about this so soon. Then again about 20 years ago when the internet was not significant there might not have been an investigation by the Judicial Conduct Board. 

Things are changing for the better in Chester County. You can see a faint shadow coming from a sliver of daylight shining into the Machiavellian gear works of Chester County.

In the middle 1970s when Teddy Rubino was Republican Party Chairman and ChesCo Commissioner there was so much corruption here in Chester County that President Carter formed a special committee to investigate the FBI in Chester County that reported only to the President. Theodore Rubino died just before he was to enter Federal prison, but I believe the corrupt system in Chester County lived on.

The CCRC’s Area 14 Chair Richard Legree came up during that period.

That special committee investigating the Delaware Valley FBI was about the drug business in Chester County. I think it concerned Daniel Joseph an informant and witness critical to several trials of accused drug dealers arrested in April of 1976, among them Richard Legree, and trials of two PA Bureau of Drug Control agents. Daniel Joseph was murdered in Virginia while in the Federal Witness Security Program by someone allegedly believed to be from Chester County. His murder along with the  investigation of the Pennsylvania Drug Control Agency made it possible to stop the prosecution of untried individuals and undo the prosecutions of many of the 40 people arrested in a drug sweep of Chester County. Richard Legree had a new trial and was acquitted. 


I think that what happened with the Downingtown court was an, “I can get away with this”, the party will protect me attitude. But I believe that "protected class of people" attitude is part of the same attitude of control and of protection of Republicans that I believe protects some players in the drug business.

The important part of this is that Republicans were a part of the investigation into the actions of the Downingtown Court.  The old “protected class of people” in Chester County that I think has its roots in Prohibition times is at least partly dead.

SEE:

SATURDAY, APRIL 16, 2011

About Coatesville’s version of Allentown’s SWEEP (Solid Waste Education and Enforcement Program).

AND:

FRIDAY, OCTOBER 14, 2011

How Richard Legree went from " Biggest drug pusher in Chester County"to CCRC Area 14 Chair