On August 15, 2025, two Waymart residents — Thomas George Kriton and Thomas James Kiton — filed a $10,000 civil complaint against Wayne County Coroner Edward R. Howell and his business, Howell Family Inc LLC, in Magisterial District Court 22-3-02.
Eleven days later, Brendan Robert Ellis entered an appearance on behalf of Howell. Ellis is a sitting Assistant District Attorney in the Wayne County District Attorney’s Office. He also runs a private law practice, the Ellis Law Group, out of an office on Church Street in Honesdale.
By September 22, the case was withdrawn. The entire proceeding lasted five weeks and never reached a hearing.
The docket — MJ-22302-CV-0000138-2025 — raises a question that no one in Wayne County’s legal establishment has answered: How is it permissible for a sitting assistant prosecutor to take on the county coroner as a private client, when those two offices are required by Pennsylvania statute to work together on every suspicious death in the county?
Ellis appeared through his private firm, the Ellis Law Group — not through the DA’s office. Whether District Attorney A.G. Howell was aware of or authorized the representation is unknown. But under Pennsylvania’s Rules of Professional Conduct, the conflict exists regardless of who initiated it.
What the Docket Shows
The complaint was filed on August 15, 2025, by Thomas James Kiton. Both plaintiffs listed Waymart addresses. Both defendants — Edward Howell individually and Howell Family Inc LLC — also listed Waymart addresses.
The claim amount was $10,000, the jurisdictional cap for a magisterial district court civil action. The nature of the underlying dispute is not specified on the docket.
The civil complaint was issued and certified on August 15 and accepted on August 19. A hearing was scheduled for September 17, 2025, before Magisterial District Judge Bonnie L. Carney.
On August 25, an Intent to Defend was filed on behalf of both Howell and Howell Family Inc LLC. The following day — August 26 — Brendan Robert Ellis, Esq. filed an Entry of Appearance representing both defendants. The docket identifies Ellis by Supreme Court number 315522 and lists his professional address as Ellis Law Group Inc, 1018 Church Street, Honesdale, PA 18431. His phone number is listed as 570-253-5229 — the Ellis Law Group business line. Ellis also uses this number and his private e-mail server to handle official DA business. This address has also appeared on official transcripts for criminal cases, including those he prosecutes before Judge Meagher.
The September 17 hearing was continued. A new hearing was scheduled for September 22 before a vacant MDJ seat — listed on the docket as “Vacant MDJ 22-3-02.” On that date, September 22, the case was withdrawn as to all plaintiffs and all defendants. No judgment was entered.
Who These People Are
Brendan Ellis has been an Assistant District Attorney in the Wayne County DA’s Office since 2019.
Before joining the DA’s office, Ellis worked as an associate attorney under Matthew L. Meagher. When Meagher was elected to the Wayne County Court of Common Pleas in 2021, Ellis took over the practice, renaming it the Ellis Law Group. Since taking the bench, Meagher has presided over cases handled by Ellis, including criminal cases.
Ellis has also served Wayne County as a public defender and guardian ad litem. He is a past Treasurer and Vice President of the Wayne County Bar Association.
Edward R. Howell has served as Wayne County Coroner since January 2012. He was elected in 2011 and was, at the time, the youngest coroner ever elected in the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania. In addition to his elected office, Howell is a licensed funeral director and embalmer who operates Howell Family Funeral Home in Waymart. The entity named as co-defendant in the Kriton suit — Howell Family Inc LLC — does not appear as a registered business in the Pennsylvania Department of State’s corporate records.
His office handles all forensic death investigations in Wayne County. According to a 2015 re-election announcement, his office had overseen the investigation of more than 1,458 deaths since he took office, including a period marked by a 31% increase in referrals driven by drug-related fatalities.
A.G. Howell is the Wayne County District Attorney — the office that employs Ellis. His full name, per the Wayne County Bar Association directory, is Alfred J. Howell. His listed email address — ajhowell@hhklawyers.com — uses the domain of Howell, Howell & Krause, a Honesdale law firm that serves as solicitor for Wayne County, Wayne Highlands School District, and multiple township and municipal entities.
The Unanswered Question
The Pocono Review contacted Coroner Howell by email to ask a single, direct question:
Dr. Howell,
I hope all is well. I’m a reporter with the Pocono Review. I’m working on a story involving the Wayne County District Attorney’s office and wanted to reach out to you directly with one question: Are you related to District Attorney Alfred G. Howell? If so, could you describe the nature of that relationship?
I’d appreciate a response at your earliest convenience. Thank you for your time.
Best, Nicole Hallman Pocono Review PoconoReview.com
As of publication, no response has been received. Whether or not the two Howells are related, the ethical problem with Ellis’s representation does not depend on a family connection. It exists regardless.
The Conflict
Pennsylvania statute requires the coroner and the district attorney to work together. 16 Pa. C.S. § 13924 states: “In the exercise of duties under this chapter, the coroner shall consult with and advise the district attorney as may be practicable. The district attorney may act as counsel to the coroner in matters relating to inquests.” Under § 13918, the coroner investigates every suspicious, violent, or drug-related death in the county and determines whether “there is sufficient reason for the coroner to believe that the death may have resulted from a criminal act or criminal neglect of an individual other than the deceased.” That determination is the trigger for prosecution. The coroner makes it. The DA’s office acts on it. In a county averaging well over a hundred coroner referrals a year, this relationship is not incidental — it is constant.
Ellis participates in that relationship as one of five prosecutors in the DA’s office. He prosecutes drug offenses, violent crimes, and child abuse cases — categories that routinely depend on coroner findings.
Pennsylvania’s Rules of Professional Conduct prohibit exactly this arrangement. RPC 1.7(a) bars an attorney from representing a client when “there is a significant risk that the representation of one or more clients will be materially limited by the lawyer’s responsibilities to another client, a former client or a third person.” RPC 1.7, Comment [8] spells out the standard: “Even where there is no direct adverseness, a conflict of interest exists if there is a significant risk that a lawyer’s ability to consider, recommend or carry out an appropriate course of action for the client will be materially limited as a result of the lawyer’s other responsibilities or interests.” And RPC 1.11(d)(1) confirms that a lawyer currently serving as a public officer or employee “is personally subject to the Rules of Professional Conduct, including the prohibition against current conflicts of interest.”
The conflict could be cured under RPC 1.7(b) — but only if each affected client gives informed consent. The Commonwealth’s consent would have to come through the DA, A.G. Howell, whose office has an ongoing statutory relationship with that client’s official capacity. Nothing in the public record reflects that any disclosure or consent occurred.
The Money Question
We do not know if Ellis was paid for his representation of Howell. That matters because every possible answer is a problem.
If Howell paid Ellis through the Ellis Law Group, then a county officer with an ongoing statutory relationship with the DA’s office became a paying client of a prosecutor in that office. Ellis took money from someone whose forensic determinations his office relies on to bring criminal charges.
If Ellis represented Howell for free, the problem shifts but doesn’t disappear. Pro bono legal representation is a thing of value. An ADA providing free legal services to the county coroner raises the question of what, if anything, flows in the other direction — and whether the coroner’s office can be expected to exercise independent judgment on death investigations when one of the prosecutors in an extremely small office did the coroner a personal favor.
What Happened to the Case
What happened between Ellis’s August 26 appearance and the September 22 withdrawal is not reflected on the docket. Whether the case settled, whether the plaintiffs were pressured, whether the presence of a county prosecutor in a $10,000 civil matter influenced the outcome — none of that is knowable from the record alone.
The Pocono Review is an independent investigative news outlet covering Monroe, Wayne, Pike, Carbon, Lackawanna, and Luzerne counties. The outlet operates under an editorial anonymity model, maintains no advertising relationships, and has no personal ties to any government covered in its reporting.
Court records referenced in this article are publicly available through the Pennsylvania Magisterial District Judge System (MDJS) at ujsportal.pacourts.us.
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The Pocono Review has identified the defendant “Edward Howell” of Waymart, PA as Wayne County Coroner Edward R. Howell based on matching name, municipality, and the co-defendant entity “Howell Family Inc LLC,” which shares its name with Howell Family Funeral Home, operated by the coroner in Waymart. The docket does not include a street address. Readers who believe this identification is in error are encouraged to contact us at corrections@poconoreview.com.