South Whitehall man charged in Capitol attack
A South Whitehall Township man has been charged in the Jan. 6 attack on the U.S. Capitol building in Washington.
Jackson Kostlosky is charged with knowingly entering or remaining in a restricted area, and violent entry and disorderly conduct on Capitol grounds, according to a document filed Friday in the U.S. District Court for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.
The document does not give Kostlosky’s age, or any details about his alleged involvement in what authorities called an “insurrection.”
Court records include a South Whitehall address where Kostlosky lives with his mother. A records search indicates a Jackson Kostolsky lives at that address. The reason for the discrepancy in the spelling of the last name could not be immediately determined.
A woman answered a phone call to a number associated with the address. She asked what the call was about when a reporter asked to speak with Jackson, then hung up without saying anything else after the reporter said it was regarding federal charges in the Jan. 6 incident at the Capitol.
According to the court records, Kostlosky was released on $250,000 bail. He must submit to random drug testing and location monitoring, avoid excessive alcohol or drug use and obey a 7 p.m.-7 a.m. curfew.
He also must surrender and/or not get a passport, not have any guns, restrict his travel to eastern Pennsylvania, avoid contact with any co-defendants or potential witnesses and not go to Washington except to appear in court, according to the document.
Kostlosky’s attorney, Maranna Meehan, did not return phone and email messages left after hours at the Federal Community Defender Office in Philadelphia.
Kostlosky and at least 20 other Pennsylvania residents are among more than 200 people charged in the Jan. 6 insurrection, according to the George Washington University Program on Extremism.
Five people, including a police officer, died in the violence when supporters of former President Donald Trump stormed the Capitol building in an attempt to disrupt the certification of Joe Biden as winner of the 2020 presidential election. Two police officers have also died by suicide since the attack, which led to Trump’s second impeachment.
HARRISBURG — On paper, Thomas Yablonski Jr. is a man of many talents.
In less than four months, the top staffer in Gov. Tom Wolf’s administration has been nominated to serve on 28 state-appointed boards, overseeing everything from podiatry to cosmetology to workers compensation. And that doesn’t include his appointments in a dozen counties across the state to be a sheriff, treasurer, magisterial judge and coroner — sometimes simultaneously.
In reality, however, he’s a well-traveled political placeholder.
In Pennsylvania, the governor has the power to appoint roughly 1,000 people to dozens of boards and positions across state government, including his own Cabinet. That number also includes appointments a governor can make when there is a vacancy in county courts and other elected offices, Wolf’s office said.
The power is not intended to be absolute, as appointments must be approved by the state Senate. And there are strict timing requirements that any administration must follow when making nominations. All of that leads to placeholders like Yablonski.
When a vacancy occurs, governors have 90 days to nominate someone. If that doesn’t happen, the seat remains vacant until the end of their term, according to administration officials. But governors are loath to give up that power, and instead turn to people to keep the seat warm — on paper only.
Sometimes, particularly toward the end of a governor’s second term, it can take more than 90 days to find someone for a post. So they turn to people like Yablonski, who are just names on paper and are never intended to fill those positions, to fulfill the 90-day requirement.
Once a suitable candidate is found, the placeholder’s name is recalled.
Given his job, it is little surprise that Yablonski is a favorite for playing the placeholder. As a deputy secretary in the administration, he helps oversee, among other things, the executive nomination and appointment process. He did not respond to a request for an interview.
His latest nominations — 45 in all — occurred just since October 2020.
Just this month, Wolf submitted Yablonski’s name for a dozen
new positions, including the high-profile job of state victim advocate. The last person to hold that title, Jennifer Storm, was not reconfirmed by the Senate, and the administration is now interviewing candidates to replace her.
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