UPDATE: Meri Jane Woods pleaded guilty to false reporting and was sentenced to two years probation and a $500 fine.
Both Robert Michael Pardee and Ronald Eiselman, Jr. were sentenced to two years probation and a $500 fine for their pleas to abuse of a corpse.
WHAT WE PREVIOUSLY REPORTED
It will be a very busy day at the Indiana County Courthouse today, with Plea Court scheduled for a number of defendants and sentencing proceedings against numerous others.
Among those scheduled in court today is Meri Jane Woods, the Clymer woman who is seeking to overturn her conviction on child pornography charges. She was found guilty of downloading child porn on her family’s computer in an attempt to frame her estranged husband in August of 2013. But state police experts determined that the images had been downloaded two weeks after the husband had left the family home and that Meri Jane Woods had downloaded them. Judge Thomas Bianco last month granted Woods’ petition for post collateral relief, ordered a new trial, and vacated her sentence of nine to 23-and-a-half months in prison.
Woods has apparently worked out a plea bargain and is scheduled for Plea Court today.
Also in court today, 27-year-old Robert Michael Pardee has a Plea Court appearance for theft and receiving stolen property in June of 2015.
In another case, Pardee will be sentenced for a guilty plea to abuse of a corpse. He was one of four defendants facing identical charges after the death of 22-year-old Tyler Eckenroad of Commodore, whose body was dumped along Wissinger Hill Road near Allen Bridge Road in Cherryhill Township in April of 2016. Eckenroad had overdosed on drugs while partying at a home along Grandview Avenue in White Township.
Co-defendant 30-year-old Ronald Eiselman Jr. will be sentenced for abuse of a corpse as well.
The other two defendants, who also pleaded guilty to abuse of a corpse, were Brittany Trausi of Coral and Bryan Harper of Indiana. They were both sentenced to probation.
Other cases scheduled for sentencing:
- 29-year-old Zackery William Bright of Home will be in Plea Court for several cases, including harassment and disorderly conduct last June, corruption of minors in November, and contempt for a violation of a court order in December.
- 42-year-old Kristy McCracken of Clymer will be sentenced for false alarms to a public safety agency, with non-prosecution on a count of retaliation against a witness or victim. Police said McCracken filed a complaint with the child abuse hotline PA ChildLine and made a false accusation against a Clymer woman.
- 27-year-old Robert Brown Ambers of Indiana will be sentenced for aggravated indecent assault of a person less than 16 years of age and for terroristic threats in a separate case. In the first case, 23 other offenses will not be prosecuted, including multiple counts of rape of a child, statutory sexual assault, and numerous counts of indecent assault and corruption of minors.
- 23-year-old Zackery Allen Collier of Ebensburg will be sentenced for receiving stolen property in three theft cases.
- 38-year-old Jeremy Joseph Urso of Coral will be sentenced for conspiracy to burglary in one case, and to aggravated assault and DUI in another.
- In separate cases, 29-year-old Tammir Hammet of Indiana and 29-year-old Tylar Greenough of Indiana will both be sentenced for aggravated assault.
