What happens when someone is arrested and charged with a crime?
When someone is arrested and charged with a crime, police departments observe a protocol that includes the reading of Miranda Rights.
- An ex-Erie Insurance employee accused of sending threats to the company has his bond reimposed.
- The trial for Ross C. Langley is now scheduled for January.
- Erie Insurance lawyers are seeking to quash subpoenas served on the company, security officers.
A former Erie Insurance employee charged with making threatening statements against company officials and accused of making similar statements against Erie County’s district attorney is once again leaving prison as he awaits a new trial date.
Erie County Judge John J. Mead, in an order issued Oct. 3, granted a request by the lawyer for 38-year-old Ross C. Langley to reimpose Langley’s $75,000 bond in the Erie police case. Under conditions of the bond, which Langley initially posted following his arraignment in late February, Mead ordered Langley’s release from prison and his placement on electronic monitoring as the case against him proceeds.
Mead also ordered Langley, of Fairview Township, to have no contact with anyone in law enforcement, including Erie police and the Erie County District Attorney’s Office. Langley was ordered under previous bond conditions to have no contact with Erie Insurance officials, and those remain in place, according to his lawyer, Justin Smith.
Langley’s release comes after Mead on Oct. 1 granted a motion by prosecutors to continue Langley’s trial, which was scheduled for this month. Chief Deputy District Attorney Steven Liboski told Mead during a hearing in Langley’s case on Sept. 29 that the Erie police detective who filed the charges against Langley was unavailable in October because of another trial he was involved with.
Langley’s trial is now scheduled for Jan. 5, according to information in his criminal docket sheet.
Criminal charges and bond revocation
Erie police on Feb. 17 filed misdemeanor charges of stalking, harassment and terroristic threats against Langley, accusing him of sending threatening communications to employees of Erie Insurance, where Langley once worked.
Langley’s bond was set at $75,000 at his Feb. 26 arraignment and he posted the bond the next day. Langley was held for court on all charges at his March 13 preliminary hearing despite failing to show up for the hearing.
Langley was taken back into custody in April, and on April 25 his bond was revoked and he was put back in prison after prosecutors told Mead Langley was continuing to send threatening messages to Erie Insurance employees and to Erie County District Attorney Elizabeth Hirz.
On April 30, Smith filed a petition for special review with the Superior Court of Pennsylvania, asking them to review the bond revocation. The Superior Court upheld the bond revocation in a ruling filed July 10.
Pretrial action
In June, Smith filed a pretrial motion seeking to have the charges filed against Langley dismissed due to lack of supporting evidence and to suppress evidence reportedly collected during a search of Langley’s home in February and the return of property seized in the search. A hearing on the matter was scheduled for August, but Smith said he withdrew motion with the expectation that the case would soon go to trial.
The trial, which had been scheduled for June, was moved to September, and then October.
On Sept. 29, lawyers representing Erie Insurance appeared before Mead for a hearing on their motion to quash subpoenas Smith had served for the upcoming trial. According to testimony at that hearing, Smith had served one of the subpoenas on the company, arguing that Langley was suspected of being fired from Erie Insurance over internal ethics complaints he had made.
Three other subpoenas were served on security officers for the company, as Smith argued Langley was being stalked and was under surveillance and that a camera was installed outside of Langley’s home.
In an order issued after the hearing, Mead asked Erie Insurance to provide defense counsel with copies of the internal complaints and to provide the court with surveillance and documents a lawyer representing Erie Insurance stated at the hearing were priveledged information.
Mead had not ruled on the motion to quash the subpoenas as of Oct. 6.
Contact Tim Hahn at [email protected].
