Pigeon-shoot foes get fines
Hindi sibling guilty
September 20, 1990
Pottsville (PA.) Republican
By Daryl Nerl
TREMONT – The brother of the key organizer of the protest against this year’s 57th annual Hegins Pigeon Shoot was found guilty of disorderly conduct in a marathon court session.
Gregory G. Hindi, 34, of Wichita, Kan., was fined $354 by District Justice Earl H. Matz Jr. after a four-hour trial characterized by conflicting testimony and angry outbursts.
Two other protesters, Bernard Unti, 30, of Philadelphia, and Theresa E. Barr, 43, of Effort, in Monroe County, were also found guilty of disorderly conduct and fined $354 each. All have 30 days to appeal.
The court session in the old schoolhouse that is Tremont’s municipal building lasted nine hours, from late morning until after dark. In the end, one of the protesters fainted.
The trials grew out of a protest at the Hegins Park on Labor Day, where pigeon-shoot enthusiasts shot 6,000 birds in the annual competition while animal-rights activists protested outside the gates. The charges resulted from fist-fights that broke out early in the afternoon between the protesters and shoot supporters.
The proceedings quickly took a form. The police, with Cpl. Arthur D. Zeplin of the Schuylkill Haven barracks, prosecuting, told their story; then the protesters presented a contradictory story.
In the end, Matz accepted the police version of events.
In the third trial, for instance, testimony centered on whether Gregory Hindi deliberately lay down in front of Cpl. Glenn R. Cousins’ horse.
Cousins testified that he had, for between 20 and 30 seconds, at the point that his brother, Steven, was in a fistfight.
Gregory Hindi testified that he was struck from behind and knocked down, and had been on the ground for three or four seconds, inadvertently blocking Cousins’ horse.
Originally, seven trials were scheduled Tuesday. However, two were postponed and two cancelled.
The trial of the key protest leader – Gregory’s brother, Steven Hindi, 36, of Plano, Ill. – was one of those postponed.
When Steven Hindi arrived Wednesday morning, summary charges against him – criminal mischief, for smashing a car windshield – were upgraded to a second-degree misdemeanor because the damage to the car exceeded $1,000.
He posted $7,500 bail on the charge and will now be scheduled for a preliminary hearing before Matz.
In Gregory Hindi’s case, much of the defense centered around a video-tape that shows him getting up off the ground in front of Cousins’ horse less than 10 seconds after he is seen standing up. Johnna L. Seeton, RD2 Troy, a lobbyist for the Pennsylvania Legislative Animal Network, testified that the tape, which she shot, was uninterrupted and unedited.
Seven witnesses, including Hindi, disputed different portions of Cousins’ testimony.
Meyer Taksel, McKeesport, testified he saw Michael Stewart, Annville, the driver of a car which had its windshield kicked in by Hindi’s brother, get out of his car and strike Gregory Hindi from behind, knocking him to the ground.
He said it took no more than five seconds for him to get off the ground.
In his closing argument, however, Zeplin said that despite the tape, he believed Gregory Hindi was guilty because it does not show the defendant’s actions in the minutes that followed.
Defense attorney Guy H. Brooks, Harrisburg, in his closing argument, defied Matz to come up with a legitimate reason why Gregory Hindi would want to impede police progress while his brother was being assaulted by counter protesters.
Saying that he based his decision on the experience of arresting officer Cousins, a 33-year veteran, Matz found Hindi guilty.
In the middle case, Barr was found guilty of engaging in a fistfight with Gail Scheib, 33, of Valley View, even though the arresting state trooper could not positively identify her in the courtroom.
Five women were seated behind the defense lawyer.
When Zeplin asked arresting trooper, Cpl. Casey McCormick, to identify Barr, she picked out Debra Hartman of Troy – who was seated next to Barr.
After the police presented their case, Brooks asked Matz to throw out the case because McCormick could not properly identify the defendant, providing “reasonable doubt.”
Zeplin told Matz that Barr “Altered her hair-do and appearance significantly enough to confuse anyone.”
Later, Gloria Senevaitis of Easton told Matz that Barr’s hair was pulled back, but her appearance was the same even including the makeup. “What I’m testifying today is that Theresa doesn’t look any different today than she did at the time of the pigeon shoot,” Senevaitis said.
“It wasn’t a tactic,” Brooks said after the trial. “We gave the prosecution the chance to identify her in the courtroom and they couldn’t do it.”
Unti, whose case was argued first, was found guilty of using a bullhorn against police orders.
According to testimony given by Hegins Township Police Chief Melvin C. Stutzman, he and Doris Gitman, Schuylkill Haven, a member of the Pennsylvania Animal Protectors Association, had agreed on parameters for the protest several days before the shoot.
The protesters were to hold a rally about a block from the shoot before marching toward the park entrance and picketing there, Stutzman said. This rally was the only place where bullhorns were to be used.
Gitman, in her testimony, disputed Stutzman’s assertion, saying that the only things discussed in their meeting was where signs could be displayed. Despite testimony by park association trustee Harry Minnich, RD1 Hegins, Gitman added that there were no signs in prominent display indicating that bullhorns could not be used.
Stutzman said he had encountered Unti on two occasions before the Philadelphia man was arrested. The first time the two met, Stutzman said, was at about 8:30 a.m. when Unti approached him and asked what could and could not be done.
Ellen Kaplan, Philadelphia, testified that such a meeting could not have taken place since, at that time, Unti was on a chartered bus en route from Philadelphia to Hegins.
Stutzman testified that Unti tried to escape his custody, by flailing his arms and swinging the bullhorn, after he was arrested and was subsequently wrestled to the ground by three state troopers. Kaplan testified that Unti’s bullhorn was immediately taken away and that he was immediately wrestled to the ground.
At one point, as protesters grew increasingly frustrated with the results, which they said were becoming more and more predictable, both Seiler and Morekin proposed pleading guilty before Matz and appealing the case to the Schuylkill County Court of Common Pleas, “instead of putting on testimony for what they believe is an inevitable result,” Brooks told Matz.
Brooks said later that Matz’s verdict was needed before an appeal could be launched.
“I wasn’t surprised at the outcome of the trials,” Brooks said. “I thought we had an uphill battle. We’ve come into Schuylkill County to defend criminal charges that stem from a protest of something this is sacred here.”
“I thought the district justice did the best job he thought he could do.”
No decisions on appeals have been made yet.
Unti, who suffered a broken shoulder and wore a sling to his trial and has alleged police brutality, said he has made no decision as to whether he would file a civil suit against police.
“I have to discuss it with my attorney,” Unti said. “We focused on this hearing.”
Two defendants, Daniel S. Morekin, 40, of Dauphin, and Carola Seiler, 45, of Hazleton, petitioned for continuances on their trials after state police amended their complaint citations on disorderly conduct charges. Their new hearings have been scheduled for Sept 26.
The last scheduled trial of the day for Ralph J. Caputo, 30, of Taylor, was forgone because he agreed to plead guilty and suffer a lesser fine, $100 plus $54 costs.
At the conclusion of the grueling series of trials, shoot protester Lynn Wagner of Pittsburgh fainted in a back room during a meeting between activists and Brooks.
Helping to prolong the trials were repeated arguments over the statues regarding disorderly conduct charges. Brooks repeatedly argued that a specific intent to create a public nuisance must be mentioned on the criminal complaint and must be proven in a trial before defendants can be found guilty. Brooks argued that the police did neither for any of the defendants in Wednesday’s hearing, making the citations “defective.”
Zeplin later petitioned to amend the complaint against Morekin, Seiler and Gregory Hindi to include that language. Brooks protested and demanded that the guilty verdict against Barr be struck down.
“It’s clearly an admission by the Commonwealth that Theresa Barr’s citation was defective,” Brooks said. “This is completely unfair.”
