Threat case is moved despite anger from defendant

>> It is unclear whether Michael Patrick McHugh is a reader of poetry. But it is evident that to some degree he has taken the advice of Dylan Thomas, the Welshman who penned the line, “Do not go gentle into that good night,” with a sense of fervor, if not eloquence.

Last week, at the conclusion of a hearing in Common Pleas Court, McHugh unleashed a torrent of verbal abuse at the judge presiding over his case at the time, as well as his then-attorney and, to a lesser extent, the prosecutor assigned to his case.

“One more time, you honor,” McHugh told Senior Judge Jo

seph Madenspacher of Lancaster County. “Go (bleep) yourself. You (bleep.) You (bleeped) with the wrong one.”

As he fumed and spewed profanities, deputy sheriffs assigned to Madenspacher’s courtroom moved McHugh towards a door that would lead him back to a holding cell in the Justice Center basement, his hands in cuffs and legs in shackles. He had been on a tirade off and on for about 15 minutes before eventually being removed from the court, raging — if not “against the dying of the light,” as Thomas would have it — at least against the trying of his case.

“This is (bleep,)” he said of the proceedings. “You people are (bleeped) up.”

McHugh is charged with threatening to shoot five people associated with Chester County government, including a Common Pleas judge, who were involved to some degree in a child custody case he was pursuing. On Wednesday, Madenspacher — the outof-county judge assigned to hear the case against him because the allegations involved a member of the county bench — agreed to transfer the matter to Delaware County court.

The move had come at the request of the prosecution, led by First Assistant District Attorney Michael Barry, who said that he and the Delaware County District Attorney’s Office agreed that the case here should be consolidated with similar accusations that McHugh faces there.

McHugh, 38, of Philadelphia, was charged in June 2019 by police in Norwood, Delaware County, with also threatening to shoot people — “put a bullet in their head,” the allegations state — including a family member. As in the case here, he is charged with terroristic threats, a misdemeanor.

Barry told Madenspacher that the similarities of the two cases and their proximity in time with one another lend the prosecutors to recommend “joinder,” overlapping two or more separate criminal cases that have similar facts and defendants, but which took place in different jurisdictions.

“If not joined, we would have to try the cases twice in different counties,” Barry told the judge. “(McHugh) shouldn’t have to go through two trials. He should only have to go through one.” It made sense for him to be tried in Delaware County, since the allegations there preceded the threats in Chester County, and do not involve a member of the bench there.

McHugh’s attorney, Phillip Simon of West Chester, told Madenspacher that he was prepared to argue against the case being transferred on a variety of points, but was cut off from doing so by McHugh. What he wanted, the defendant told the judge, was for the two cases to be joined together in Chester County, not Delaware County.

It was not clear what McHugh’s reasoning behind that strategy was. However, he did make certain to tell Madenspacher that he believed the judge had acted inappropriately in his case and that he should be removed from the proceeding.

“You are simply trying to evade your own misconduct,” McHugh told the judge, although he provided no specifics and there is no evidence the judge has acted inappropriately. He also alleged that Barry was trying to have the case transferred because his office was in danger of losing the case because of problems in the arrest warrant against him.

McHugh’s arguments left both Simon and Barry frustrated and confused. Simon threw up his hands in exasperation at one point when his client contradicted a point he was trying to make in his favor against the transfer motion, and Barry was seen holding his head in his hands at the outrageousness of the defendants behavior. The veteran prosecutor at one juncture asked that McHugh be removed fro the courtroom because of his profane outbursts.

According to the criminal complaint against him filed by Chester County Detective John O’Donnell, in 2019 McHugh was involved in child custody cases that involved the county’s Department of Children, Youth and Families.

On July 1, 2019, at about 1 p.m., McHugh called a CYF caseworker on the telephone and complained about his case being mishandled. He said that because of that, he was goin g to “put a bullet in the head” of the judge who had overseen his case, as well as the head of the child welfare department and another CYF case worker. While McHugh continued to rant profanely, the caseworker hung up and contacted a supervisor.

Ten minutes later, a deputy from the Chester County Sheriff’s Office contacted McHugh by phone, only to find him irate and screaming profanities. He then threatened the deputy, saying that he would “put a bullet right in (his) head.”

“McHugh said he wanted to be arrested so that he could come to the Chester County Courthouse and put a bullet in everybody’s head. ‘Someone is going to pay,’” the affidavit quoted him as saying. The call was witnessed by two other deputies.

The following day, McHugh was arrested by U.S. Marshall’s at a house in Philadelphia. He has been held in county prison on $100,000 bail since.

In addition to approving the transfer of the case, which will now be assigned to Delaware County Judge Margaret Amoroso, Madenspacher also said he would grant Simon’s motion to be removed as McHugh’s attorney. The two of them had increasingly been unable to work together, with McHugh accusing Simon of having lied about his intentions in court papers.

The judge’s decision brought a figurative sigh of relief from Simon. “Your honor, I would greatly appreciate that,” he said.