Edward O’Brien III ordered to state prison

West Whiteland man was found guilty of allowing his father to die by keeping him from medical treatment or nursing care

Man was found guilty of letting his father die by keeping him from medical treatment or nursing care.

WEST CHESTER » The West Whiteland man who was found guilty of allowing his father to die by keeping him from medical treatment or nursing care has been ordered to prison on Friday.

Common Pleas Judge Ann Marie Wheatcraft on Wednesday restated her intention to have Edward J. O’Brien III begin the five to 10 years sentence she imposed in April 2016, rejecting a motion by his defense attorney that he be permitted to remain free as the case makes its way through the appellate court.

Wheatcraft, who presided over O’Brien’s two trial on the death, said she believed that state law gave her the discretion to revoke the bail she had permitted 20 months ago when she sentenced him on third-degree murder charges in the 2013 death of his father, 92-year-old Edward J. O’Brien Jr.

She cited the “seriousness of the crime and the length of the sentence” for her decision to revoke bail, following a decision by the state Superior Court to uphold the conviction and decline the defense’s motion for a new trial or to overturn the conviction.

Wheatcraft gave O’Brien, an attorney who had taken in his father in his Exton area home in 2011, where he lived until his death, until Friday at 4 p.m. to report to state prison to begin serving his sentence.

He will have to do so unless defense attorney Joseph P. Green Jr., who has represented O’Brien throughout the lengthy and twisted case, is able to convince a higher court to grant an emergency petition to keep him free on bail pending argument over Wheatcraft’s order. The judge declined to give him a chance to file that appeal before O’Brien reports to prison.

Green had argued that because O’Brien had not violated any of the terms of his $15,000 bail, state law allows him to remain free until all of his appeals have been exhausted. Green said that despite the Superior Court panel’s deci-

sion last month upholding the conviction, he intended to seek argument before the entire court. Should that fail, he said he would ask the state Supreme Court to hear the case.

“The case is not final,” Green said.

But Chief Deputy District Attorney Ronald Yen, who prosecuted O’Brien’s two trials, said it was his office’s position that it was within Wheatcraft’s discretion to either revoke bail or let it remain following the decision of the appellate court. Wheatcraft agreed with his assessment.

O’Brien, 62, did not speak during the brief hearing.

O’Brien had maintained through his two trials that he was acting on his elderly father’s long-held wishes that he not be taken to a nursing home or be cared for by strangers. His first trial ended with a hung jury, the second with a conviction on multiple counts.

O’Brien III was accused by West Whiteland police — including Officer Jason Madormo and former investigator Kristin Lund, now with the Chester County Detectives Office — of allowing his father, Edward O’Brien Jr., to languish in the second floor bedroom of the home they shared for 28 months. He was accused of depriving him of medication for his congestive heart condition, not taking him to see a doctor — except on one brief occasion — and of keeping him from the regular nursing care he was said to require.

O’Brien Jr. died on Sept. 8, 2013, at the age of 92, suffering from heart failure.