Tuesday, September 15, 2009

Frankie "kneecaps" Pizella is indicted

W-B Area School Board president indicted on bribery charge


Prosecutors allege Pizzella passed $5,000 from a person seeking a teaching position in the district and his or her spouse to an "unindicted board of education member," according to the indictment filed today in Scranton U.S. District Court.

From what I hear Frank has spent the last few years cleaning up his act so this is a surprise but not a shock since this happened before he became a School Director. A few years ago he was running for Plains Township Commissioner and was convicted of soliciting some goons to break his opponent's legs. He received probation for that offense. There was also a domestic incident involving his ex-wife and a firearm.

While I believe in redemption, it just goes to show how fucking stupid we have been as voters. Anybody who grew up in the North End of Wilkes-Barre or Plains Township in the late 1970's had to deal with Plains Police Officer Frank Pizzella and he was a power tripper. I have some stories I could tell you and I'm sure many others could chime in.

Frank performed a public service in 2001 when he ran for Luzerne County Controller. The primary was between him, Luzerne Mayor Andy Reilly and Steve Flood. Commissioner Makowski and ex-Commissioner Crossin begged him not to run but he did and split the old guard Democratic vote. Steve Flood won that election and raised Cain about was going on in the county but Maryanne Petrilla took Flood out in the next round in 2005.


Pizzella was fired from his county job shortly after and he sued and won. He was the county honcho about weights and measures. A job that never existed before and hasn't existed since.

The TL has a rundown of his previous legal troubles.

Pizzella’s past includes brushes with law

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

Every dog has his day who next ?????????????

Anonymous said...

Hopefully Frankie will be meeting up with some old chums

Big Dan said...

You know, like all "conspiracy theories" or whatever you want to call them, all my life I heard rumors of people paying to get teaching positions. And people said "conspiracy theorist" and things like that. Well, well, well........not only was it TRUE...it was WORSE than I thought!

The Scranton Guardian said...

Who was the Judge who sentenced Pizzella to probation for paying someone to break his opponent's legs ???

Anonymous said...

He was tipstaff for Loukata???!!

Anonymous said...

He was tipstaff for Loukata???!!

Zen said...

I wonder what this does to Frankie's deal with a certain democratic candidate for a county row office??

I've known Frank for years and years. I always thought he was a devious S.O.B. I found it incredulous that he was such a big cog in the dem party machine. The man was a pure slime.

Big Dan said...

Frank "Tanya Harding" Pizella.