April 7, 2016

TOWN

AND

15

COUNTRY

Health Issues for Defense Attorney Delay Zieglers Criminal Trial

By Bradley Schlegel
Correspondent

The criminal trial of an embattled Douglass Township supervisor accused of stealing municipal property for personal use,
intimidating witnesses, forging a
subpoena and making false statements to law enforcement officials
has been delayed indefinitely.
Health concerns recently experienced by the defense attorney
representing Fredrick W. Ziegler
led to the continuance.
Vincent DiFabio will be laid
up until at least the middle of
April after doctors discovered four
blockages in his heart, according to
Rosemary Mascherino, a paralegal
at the attorneys Paoli law firm.
She said DiFabio could return
to work until the middle of April,
and that the trial in the Montgomery County Common Pleas
Court before Judge Gary S. Silow
might be rescheduled for June or
July at the earliest.
Jury selection in the case against
Ziegler, a former Douglass Township
police chief who has also worked
as an investigator for Montgomery
Countys Extradition Unit, was
scheduled to commence this week.
According to Mascherino,
the lawyers assistant, DiFabio
experienced chest pain during the
final full week of March and drove

himself to the Bryn Mawr hospital. She said doctors discovered

four blockages, two of which she
described as major, and implemented four stints.
Ziegler faces charges of theft
by unlawful taking, receiving stolen property, intimidation and retaliation against witnesses, forgery,
unsworn falsification to authorities, tampering with public records
obstruction of administrative law
and conflict of interest from September 2012 to the end of 2014.
According to law enforcement
officials, Ziegler stole plywood,
a chainsaw and a propane tank,
and illegally utilized a municipal
gas card for his personal vehicle
between August of 2012 and November of 2013.
Four months after filing the
initial charges, authorities rearrested
the elected official on charges of
the unlawful use of a Montgomery
County Court subpoena and attempted intimidation of Douglass
Township Manage Pete Hiryak, a
witness in the initial case against
him.
According to law enforcement
officials, Ziegler initially stole plywood, a chainsaw, a propane tank
and illegally utilized a municipal
gas card for his personal vehicle
between August of 2012 and November of 2013.

At a preliminary hearing last

April, DiFabio argued unsuccessfully that his client lawfully borrowed the new chainsaw which
he broke and replaced approximately 18 months later to clear
trees on his property related to a
drainage problem created several
years ago by municipal officials.
The defense attorney claimed
that since township officials never
asked his client to reimburse the
municipality for four unauthorized
fuel purchases, authorities cannot
prove an intent to deprive.
According to DiFabio, Ziegler
gave Hiryak a blank check to cover
the cost of the plywood on Nov.
20, 2013 the same day a group
of township officials met with
Montgomery County detectives to
discuss the situation.
During the preliminary hearing before Collegeville District
JudgeCathleen Kelly Rebar, Hiryak
testified that he never filled in an
amount on the check. Flannery
called the check issuance selfserving, just like everything else
Mr. Ziegler has done in this case.
Mike Heydt, Douglass Townships road master, testified that
Ziegler took the 100-gallon propane tank paid for with township
funds saying that he wanted to
utilize it at his hunting cabin in
New York.

Learning to Use Fire Extinguishers - Frontier Girls Troop #144 would like to thank East

Greenville Fire Company firefighters Shawn Shade, Rob Shafer and Hunter Snyder for coming
out to teach the girls how to use a fire extinguisher. Thank you to Bob Murphy for teaching about
compasses and the North Star. The training, which was held on Friday, April 1, 2016, is in conjunction with the earning of their Emergency Preparedness badge.

The supervisor replaced the

tank with two smaller tanks, according to Heydt.
Law enforcement officials
filed the initial set of charges
against Ziegler in September of
2014.
In January of 2015, authorities
charged Ziegler a former police

chief in Douglass Township who

also workedas an investigator for
theMontgomery Countys Extradition Unit of the unlawful use of
a Montgomery CountyCourtsubpoena and attempted intimidation
of Hiryak, a witness in the initial
case against him.