WBIG Follow-up on Nicholas Cave
Last month Frank Sorick reported on Wilkes-Barre Parking Enforcement Officer Nicholas Cave after a Wilkes-Barre resident made a complaint to the paper regarding harassing behavior by Cave at her residence. Follow-up with the city has produced no additional information concerning the incident. However, a reader who noticed our July article reported that unrelated harassment and simple assault charges against Cave are still pending before Magistrate Rick Cronauer.
The Independent Gazette visited the magistrate’s office and was able to ascertain that the harassment charges had been withdrawn in 2012 and that Cronauer had recused himself from the case on September 7, 2012, citing conflict of interest. At that time, the case file should have been transferred to the Luzerne County Court Administration Office to be reassigned to another court.
Following up with the court administration office, located in the Luzerne County Courthouse, we spoke with one Kathy Hubbard, who was unable to immediately locate the file in question. “I find this [delay in case reassignment] highly unusual,” remarked Hubbard, commenting that matters sometimes “fall through the cracks” and that she would need to confirm the file’s absence with an office colleague.
On Tuesday, August 6, the court administration office notified the Gazette of their assessment of the case’s status, reporting, “For whatever reason that case was never assigned but the papers were signed today and sent to Judge Malast.”
Rest assured, progress of this matter will continue to be monitored.
