bailey jolley @bjolley_ - Twitter Profile

bjolley_ retweeted

21 days ago

P*ssed off father addresses township board over the cover up of an accident where his wife his son were hit by the son of a friend of the chief of police. This father is demanding accountability at a North Huntingdon Township Board of Commissioners meeting, but the backstory behind this confrontation is a chilling look at a family's fight against small-town corruption. On July 7, 2024, Kathleen Morcheid was driving with her 13-month-old son, Jordan, when a vehicle driven by 22-year-old Nolan Patrick Mullen crossed the center line, striking them nearly head-on. Accident reconstruction experts later testified that Mullen was flying at 90 MPH in a 35 MPH zone just five seconds before the collision. While the toddler miraculously survived without major injuries, Kathleen suffered life-altering harm, including a severe traumatic brain injury and permanent physical tremors that stripped her of her career as a nurse. Nicholas Carrozza, the child’s father seen at the podium, quickly uncovered what he alleges is a deep-seated conflict of interest. Local critics and public complaints allege that Mullen’s father was close personal friends with high-ranking local police officials. Carrozza claims responding officers failed to perform standard on-scene sobriety testing, ignored witnesses who saw the driver laughing after the crash, and systematically stonewalled his family's Right-to-Know requests for body camera footage and basic police reports. The systemic frustration peaked when the District Attorney’s office offered Mullen a lenient plea deal—dismissing the felony chargesin exchange for probation and home electronic monitoring. Fortunately, a Westmoreland County judge took the unusual step of rejecting the plea deal, stating home monitoring was entirely inappropriate for an offense requiring prison time. Carrozza fought back with constitutional law. He openly called out Township Manager Harry Fulk for attempting to bypass him, exposed threats of arrest from the DA for asking questions, and vowed to strip the board members of their qualified immunity via a federal civil rights lawsuit under 42 U.S.C. § 1983. As of June 2026 The fallout has turned into a massive First Amendment battle. Instead of transparent answers, local authorities hit Carrozza with a wave of criminal charges, ordering him to stand trial for misdemeanor counts of disrupting a public meeting, illegal recording in a police lobby, and endangering a public official after he posted an officer's photo online to criticize the department. Carrozza maintains that these charges are an unconstitutional overreach designed to criminalize citizen activism and silence a father demanding justice for his permanently injured wife and child. Meanwhile, the family home has fallen into foreclosure due to mounting medical debt. As far as the driver. Mullen's defense attorney requested a special pretrial hearing to challenge the state's evidence, specifically arguing that Morcheid's injuries did not legally meet the threshold of "serious bodily injury" and that the felony charge should be thrown out. Judge Stewart firmly rejected the defense's request to drop the felony charge. The judge noted that Morcheid's daily life remains entirely upended by her ongoing brain injury symptoms, headaches, speech issues, and physical tremors. The prosecution also successfully presented accident reconstruction data proving Mullen was driving 90 MPH in a 35 MPH zone just five seconds before the impact, which the court agreed was the absolute "definition of recklessness." Because the defense's efforts to dismiss the charges failed, Judge Stewart ruled that the final determination of fault and the severity of the crash must be decided by a local jury. Mullen remains charged with felony aggravated assault by vehicle, misdemeanor reckless endangerment, and multiple traffic summaries as the case moves toward a formal criminal trial.