Are the wrong people being elected constable?
Poor system of checks and balances leads some with troubling backgrounds to quasi-law enforcement posts
When Manuel Rodriguez pleaded guilty in 2020 to settle allegations he had lied about his address in Monroe County to get elected as constable, he agreed that he would not hold elected office in Pennsylvania or any other state, according to court records.
In November, Rodriguez ran unopposed and was elected constable in South Whitehall Township after moving in with his sister earlier last year, he said.
The case in Monroe County, where detectives used cellphone records to support allegations Rodriguez actually lives in the Bronx, and his subsequent election in South Whitehall illustrate a lack of checks and balances for constables, who are considered independent contractors with no chain of command.
Critics say that while constables provide a vital service to the district courts, many elected to the positions never get certifications needed to work for the courts, and some take advantage of a lack of oversight to push the boundaries of a constable’s powers.
And with little public attention on constable elections, those looking for a position need only to find a vacant seat and establish residency.
“I think a motivation for a lot of people to get elected, who don’t do anything with it afterward, is to have a gun and a badge with the implication that you are a law enforcement officer,” said Joshua Stouch, a full-time constable in Montgomery County and legislative director of the Commonwealth Constables Association.
Without regulation or oversight, “bad apples do sneak through,” said state Rep. Tracy Pennycuick, a Montgomery County Republican who is proposing legislation to prevent registered sex offenders
and anyone else convicted of a crime serving as constables.
“When you add in the ability to carry a gun and quasi law enforcement powers, do you want someone like that knocking on your door with a warrant?” Pennycuick said.
Investigations by the Lehigh County district attorney’s office have revealed at least two people elected to constable offices in November with a criminal record or facing changes whose residences are also in question.
After The Morning Call published an article in December detailing Nicholas C. Douglas’ criminal history, the district attorney’s office filed a motion to prevent him from taking office.
The Michigan man has convictions for theft, fraud and impersonating a police officer and did not live at the St. John Street address he claimed on election paperwork. In January a judge disqualified Douglas from holding office.
On Monday, the district attorney’s office filed a complaint against Steven A. Wiggs, who was reelected in November as a constable in Allentown’s 16th Ward. Prosecutors said a nine-month investigation showed he never went to the South Woodward Street address where he claimed to live in election paperwork, including his petition to be on the ballot, financial interest statement and oath of office.
According to the complaint filed in Lehigh County Court, investigators installed cameras outside the South Woodward Street house and another address on Fernor Street. The cameras showed Wiggs was never at the South Woodward Street address but visited Fernor Street, where he parked and sometimes slept in his three police cars. Investigators also followed him to an address in Newark, where they said he actually lives.
A woman who answered the door at the Woodward Street home last month told a Morning Call reporter that Wiggs does not live there. The owner of the home told investigators Wiggs is a former neighbor who moved away about two years ago and asked to use the address for constable business.
Wiggs said he has lived at the South Woodward Street address for more than two years.
“I think you spoke to someone at the wrong time — wrong mindset,” he said last week before ending a phone call. He didn’t respond to a message after the complaint was filed.
Court records show he used an address next door to the one on his most recent election forms. Records show that in 2015, when he was elected as a write-in candidate in the 16th Ward, Wiggs was also on the ballot as a Democrat in the 12th Ward.
Wiggs faces charges in New Jersey that he brought a handgun with three illegal large-capacity magazines to a Newark courthouse and that he impersonated a police officer. Wiggs was also charged twice in 2018 with weapons offenses and impersonating a police officer in Philadelphia, but the charges were dropped. His lawyer in the New Jersey case did not respond to a request for comment, and there is no trial date in the case.
Wiggs’ public Facebook page includes pictures of him in a tactical vest with the word “Police” across the front in large yellow letters. Video Wiggs posted this month shows his car stopped on Interstate 95 in Philadelphia with red and blue emergency lights flashing as, Wiggs said in the video, he provides assistance to a stranded motorist. In other videos Wiggs asserts that his office is equivalent to that of a sheriff or the state police.
After his arrest in Philadelphia, state police issued a bulletin concerning officer safety, noting that Wiggs made comments on his Facebook page expressing anger over what he called a “personal vendetta” against him by state police.
The Morning Call obtained the November 2018 Pennsylvania Criminal Intelligence Center bulletin from a source who did not want to be identified because of its confidential nature. It noted his arrests in Philadelphia and that Wiggs is known to work as a security guard or a bouncer in the city. It warned law enforcement officers to use caution if they have contact with Wiggs.
Rodriguez pleaded guilty to a summary charge of disorderly conduct to settle the allegation he lied about his address and also a charge of perjury in which detectives alleged he lied in a district court trial over improper tinting on his car windows. Rodriguez spoke briefly with a Morning Call
reporter in January but did not respond to follow-up contacts asking him to answer questions about his agreement not to hold elected office.
According to a complaint, Monroe County detectives began investigating Rodriguez in May 2019 after receiving information that he did not live at the apartment in Delaware Water Gap listed on his ballot petition and other paperwork he filed to seek reelection.
The manager of the apartment complex confirmed that while Rodriguez leased the apartment, it was occupied by lawyer Joseph Maher. A detective used public records to find an address for Rodriguez in the Bronx and obtained a copy of the lease signed by Rodriguez.
Investigators also obtained nearly a year’s worth of cellphone records that showed Rodriguez spent more than three-quarters
of the time in New York and only 2% of his time near the Delaware Water Gap apartment. They showed Rodriguez was in Monroe County only 53 out of the 352 days examined.
Detective Brian Webbe said the case was combined with an earlier perjury charge and Rodriguez was permitted to plead guilty to a summary charge with the condition that he no longer hold elected office.
‘Loose cannons’
Constables, although not unique to Pennsylvania, are a throwback to the state’s colonial system of government, which itself was an extension of English rule. Constables were elected peacekeepers in a time when there were no paid police officers.
“The idea was you elected somebody local that you trusted, that you knew had a good head on their shoulders,”
said Eric Winter, a Berks County lawyer who represents constables.
“They were a banker or baker or blacksmith, and when they were needed they came and did their job.”
And although the modern role of constables is more focused on executing warrants and serving legal papers for the state’s district courts, they are still law enforcement officers with statewide authority who are permitted to carry guns and make arrests when they witness breaches of the peace.
Lehigh County District Attorney Jim Martin said that while many constables are good at the job and do the work they’re elected to do, others who claim to have the same authority as local and state police are problematic.
“Many of them are loose cannons,” Martin said.
In October, Martin issued a 10-page memo to provide guidance to Lehigh County police chiefs in response to concerns regarding questionable activities and statements by state constables. It stated constables are not police officers and only certified officers employed by a police department have authority to investigate crimes or stop vehicles.
It said that while constables can detain people if they witness breaches of the peace, they must call and wait for a police officer. Constables must also identify themselves as such and not police officers, the memo said.
Wayne County District Attorney A.G. Howell said he encountered issues with a group of constables who believe they can do more than what the law authorizes constables to do. He issued a memo in January similar to Martin’s outlining the limits of constables’ authority.
“My primary concern is if they get into a matter and do something beyond the scope of what they’re permitted to do, it could hamper an investigation or a prosecution down the road,” Howell said, noting that if a person is improperly detained or property is illegally searched, any evidence could be thrown out in court.
Pennycuick said she’s also working with Berks County Rep. Barry Jozwiak, who has proposed legislation to eliminate constables through attrition and shift their responsibilities, along with the revenue they collect, to county sheriff ’s departments.
“If they don’t work in their office for a period of six months, it’s considered vacated,” Jozwiak said of the proposed bill’s provisions. He notes the legislature eliminated constables in Philadelphia in 1970.
“Some people say it’s time to reform the system,” Jozwiak said. “I say the office of constable is a vestige that isn’t needed in the 21st century.”
Jozwiak has introduced similar legislation in the past, but it died in committee.
Stouch, from the constables association, said he agrees that if the constables can’t be modernized and professionalized, they should be eliminated.
“I don’t say that lightly,” he said. “That’s my career I’m talking about.”
The lack of action from legislators has been frustrating, he said.
“A tragic event is going to need to occur to get the House or Senate to act and provide meaningful legislative reform,” Stouch said.
Tragedies have occurred in recent years.
In 2016 a Perry County constable attempting to serve eviction papers shot and killed a 12-year-old girl after her father pointed a rifle at the constable. The constable’s shot passed through the father’s arm and struck the girl. The father was convicted of homicide for his daughter’s death.
In 2014 two Lehigh County constables attempting to serve warrants for unpaid traffic and parking tickets shot at a Whitehall Township man as he backed his car out of a garage, paralyzing him. Former Constable Howard Altemos, who fired the shot that struck the man, pleaded no contest to reckless endangerment.
Altemos, who is no longer a constable, and Constable Carlos Bernardi, who was reelected last year, settled a civil lawsuit for $550,000.
In Northampton County, Richard Seeds was one of three constables who shot and killed three dogs in 2003 while looking for a man with unpaid parking tickets. Seeds and the other constables settled a lawsuit with the dog owners and others in the home for $320,000.
Seeds, who has also faced scrutiny for pointing a gun at a 14-year-old suspected in a bicycle theft and for excessive force against a prisoner, was reelected in November to a constable post in Bethlehem Township.
Constables must have certification from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency to do work for the courts, such as serving warrants or eviction papers. While they must also receive firearms certification to carry a gun while working for the courts, constables are exempt from the requirement to have a permit to carry a concealed weapon and may carry a gun in Pennsylvania without completing the training.
Without certification, constables may still serve as peacekeepers, keeping order at polling places or other public events.
Records obtained through a right-to-know request from the Pennsylvania Commission on Crime and Delinquency show that only nine of the 26 constables elected in November in Lehigh County were certified to do work for the courts and carry a gun. In Northampton County, 15 of the 69 constables elected in November were certified to work for the courts and carry a gun.
The PCCD’s 2020 annual report on constable training said about 64% statewide had completed basic certification and less than half had completed firearms training.
The records show Rodriguez is not certified, having resigned his certification in 2020, in the month he pleaded guilty. Wiggs was certified until Feb. 12, when his insurance coverage expired, a PCCD official said, but Wiggs has since restored his certification, according to the agency’s online database.
John Pfau, manager of training services at PCCD, said in years when there is a large turnover in constable offices it usually takes most of the year for those who intend to become certified to complete the courses. But the number of constables completing training is declining, he said.
Two factors have also reduced the amount of work available for constables, Pfau said. The option to pay fines online with a credit card and increased use of virtual court appearances during the pandemic mean fewer people are issued warrants for failure to pay fines or appear in court.
Those factors also mean that constables are collecting less money through the $5 training surcharge assessed on every constable service, which has not changed since 1994. The revenue collected declined 22% between 2010 and 2020, according to the PCCD report on training.
As a result, the PCCD reduced the amount of annual training required and eliminated optional training programs. Since 2020 it also requires constables to pay about $2,600 for basic certification and firearms certification.
Pfau said that has also reduced the number of newly elected constables who seek certification, but it has also reduced a drain on the program’s resources from those who take training courses but never do work for the courts.
After the last big election for constables in 2015,
PCCD ran 14 basic training classes.
“We tracked those guys, and very few of them went to work for the courts and contributed to the training fund,” Pfau said.
Stouch said one draw to the office of constable is that, once certified, they are covered by the federal law that allows qualified law enforcement officers to carry a concealed weapon anywhere in the country.
“If you are certified, it becomes a national concealed carry permit,” Stouch said.
Rodriguez was arrested in New York in 2006 and charged with illegal possession of a weapon after police questioned him about sitting in what appeared to be an unmarked police car with out-of-state plates, according to court records.
Rodriguez testified in a hearing that whatever forms of identification he showed the officers, they said they were fake. The officers also told him the warrants he was in New York to serve were fake.
He successfully argued to have the charge dismissed, citing the federal 2004 Law Enforcement Officer Safety Act, which permits qualified police and retired police to carry concealed weapons in any state. The New York County Court found that because Rodriguez was carrying out official business as a constable, he was legally carrying his gun, according to court records.
While Wiggs was certified to carry a gun while doing court work when he was arrested and charged in December 2019 in Essex County, New Jersey law prohibits the possession of large-capacity magazines even for off-duty police.
Wiggs was at the courthouse on personal business, court records say. He is also charged with falsely stating that he was a police officer and showing sheriff ’s officers a Monroe County identification badge with the words “Northeast Regional Counter-Terrorism Task Force.” The charges are still pending and no trial is scheduled.
The New Jersey case is the third time Wiggs has been charged with impersonating a police officer and unlawful possession of a weapon. State police initially charged Wiggs in Philadelphia County Court with operating a vehicle illegally with red and blue lights, which are only permitted on police vehicles under the state vehicle code.
According to court papers, troopers encountered him several times stopped behind disabled vehicles on I-95 with the emergency lights on. Wiggs was found guilty last year in Perry County of using red and blue emergency lights on his car, court records show.
When Wiggs arrived at the courthouse to answer the charge in April 2018, he was carrying his firearm and wearing an unofficial constable’s uniform, even though his certification had lapsed. State police later charged him with firearms violations and impersonating an officer, based on statements he made during the hearing on his traffic citation. He was charged a second time with firearms violations and impersonating a police officer after he arrived for a hearing on the first set of charges carrying a handgun.
The charges were later withdrawn and Wiggs sued in federal court, alleging the troopers had engaged in malicious prosecution and wrongful arrest, but lost.