By Rob Wheary
The News-Item
WILLIAMSPORT — A federal court has thrown out two federal lawsuits filed by inmates in the Northumberland County Prison.
A 2012 lawsuit filed by Erick Trometter and a 2009 suit by Nathan Reigle were dismissed earlier this month by judges in U.S. District Court for the Middle District of Pennsylvania.
Both suits were dismissed for the same reason - lack of filings by the plaintiffs for the case to proceed.
Trometter, 23, filed his suit in 2012 while a prisoner in the Northumberland County Prison, alleging that he was abused physically by guards after being accused of throwing water with another individual out of their cells. He filed suit against then-Warden Roy Johnson, Deputy Warden Brian Wheary, prison sergeants Krista Brouse and Joe Moore and corrections officers Jason Greek, William Reber and another unnamed officer and a nurse, “Jane Doe.”
Johnson was dismissed from the case in September 2013. In a memorandum dismissing the suit, U.S. District Judge Richard Conaboy wrote Trometter was released from the prison Sept. 11, 2013. However, he had not provided the court with a current address and a HIPAA authorization for his alleged injuries.
“Since Trometter’s present whereabouts are unknown, it would be a waste of judicial resources to allow this action to continue,” Conaboy wrote.
The court said it would reconsider their determination if Trometter provided the court with his current address within a reasonable period. He is currently incarcerated at SCI-Coal Township facing charges of aggravated assault in two separate cases: assaulting his grandmother July 8, 2014, at their home in Sunbury and wielding a knife in a confrontation with Sunbury Police Chief Brad Hare on Mile Post Road later the same day. When Trometter did not respond to verbal commands or the use of a Taser, Hare shot Trometter in the leg, injuring him.
Reigle
Reigle filed his lawsuit in September 2009 against then-county prison warden Ralph “Rick” Reish, Lt. Jim Smink, and other prison officials. He claimed to have been denied dental, psychological and medical care while in prison and retaliated against when reporting grievances to the Lewisburg Prison Project.
Mirroring Trometter’s case, Reigle failed to give the court his address to allow the case to proceed when released in January 2015, despite motions to compel filed by the defendants. U.S. District Judge Yvette Kane wrote in her opinion that due to Reigle’s repeated delays of the discovery process, she dismissed the case for failure to prosecute.
Currently, Reigle is a co-plaintiff in a 2014 suit with inmate Charles Picarella against Warden Roy Johnson, Wheary and the members of the Northumberland County Prison Board.
Picarella and Reigle claimed that prison official denied them outside reading material, visitation rights, exercise privileges and access to the prison law library and subjected them to abuse through the conditions of their cells.
The last motion in the case, filed by the defendants April 16, was for the defendants to talk to Picarella through deposition at SCI-Benner, where he is serving a sentence on drug charges.