Trooper not guilty on oppression charge
WEST CHESTER » A Pennsylvania state trooper who allegedly punched a man suspected of drunk driving while the man was handcuffed in a patrol car has been acquitted on two misdemeanor charges he faced at trial last week.
But the Common Pleas Court jury in Senior Judge Thomas Gavin’s courtroom said Thursday that it could not come to a unanimous decision on whether John Robert Sromovsky, who served at the Avondale state police barracks until his arrest last year, was guilty of illegally assaulting the man, an undocumented immigrant from Mexico.
The panel of nine men and three women found Sromovsky, who the prosecutor called a “rogue state trooper” who “flew off the handle” in the incident, not guilty of charges of official oppression and terroristic threats. It remained hung on the charge of simple assault, however, after deliberating about six hours on Thursday.
Gavin declared a mistrial on the assault charge and dismissed the jury around 7:30 p.m.
Cynthia Morgan, the assistant district attorney who led the prosecution with her colleague Tanner Jacobs, said that her office planned to retry Sromovsky on the simple assault charge, also a misdemeanor.
Sromovsky, 34, of Upper Chichester, Delaware County, a nine-year veteran of the state police, testified in his defense that he had done nothing wrong in the incident, which was captured on a video recorder in the state police cruiser where the DUI suspect, Lorenzo Lopez was seated, belted in with his hands cuffed behind his back. He said he was concerned about the safety of himself and his fellow officers on the scene because of Lopez’s reckless behavior in the state police SUV.
His attorney, Christian Hoey of Paoli, told the jury in his closing argument that the prosecution was acting as a “Monday morning quarterback” in charging Sromovsky. He said the trooper had acted within the law and state police procedure to control the situation, which had been described as a fight with an unruly subject in radio calls prior to Sromovsky’s arrival on the scene.