Opinion & Analysis
On January 5, 2026, the Wayne County Courthouse Facebook page posted a photo of ADA Brendan Ellis receiving recognition from Wayne County Commissioners Brian W. Smith, James Shook, and Jocelyn Cramer for his 10 years of service to the county.
The post read: “Commissioners recognized Brendan Ellis on his 10 years with the county. He was credited with happily taking on every case assigned to him and being a very community minded individual.”
Every case assigned to him.
That includes the cases he prosecuted in front of Judge Matthew Meagher, the man he co-owned a law firm with. Pennsylvania entity #562680 was incorporated as Meagher Law Inc. Ellis joined it in 2013, according to the Wayne County Bar Association’s own announcement. It was later renamed Ellis Law Group Inc. It was never dissolved. Ellis and Meagher were co-owners of a named law firm, and Ellis prosecuted criminal defendants in Meagher’s courtroom for years.
How many cases? Meagher told us himself. On May 11, 2026, in a certified transcript from Commonwealth v. Kaitlin White (CP-64-CR-0000330-2024), Meagher stated on the record: “Since January of 2022 I have presided over matters that ADA Ellis has been involved in.” He said it like it was a defense. It’s not. It’s a confession. Four and a half years of cases. And the commissioners gave him an award for it.
The commissioners didn’t give Ellis an award despite that. They gave him an award for it. The very thing that should have prompted recusal is the thing they put on the plaque. He never said no. He never stepped aside. He just kept prosecuting.
Let’s call it what it is. This is corruption. Not the kind where someone slides an envelope across a desk. The kind where everyone in the building knows the prosecutor and the judge used to run a law firm together, and nobody says a word because the arrangement works for everyone who they believe matters. Ellis gets convictions. Meagher gets a clean docket. Howell gets numbers. The commissioners get a “functioning” court system they don’t have to think about. The only people it doesn’t work for are the defendants. Although, given that Pro Bono Partnerships Inc. took in six figures in IOLTA money across seven years and never disclosed a single expenditure, we wouldn’t rule out the envelope thing either.
And the people who liked the post? They tell you everything you need to know about who’s watching and who isn’t.
Lindsey Collins liked this post. Collins is a public defender. She’s sat across the table from Ellis in cases where he had no business prosecuting. She’s seen firsthand how the office operates when the prosecutor and the judge share a professional history. As we learned from the Kaitlin White case, she refused to fight Ellis. A public defender’s job is to stand between the state and the accused. When the prosecutor co-owned a law firm with the judge, a public defender should be the first person raising hell about it. Not liking a Facebook post commending him for the behavior she refused to challenge.
Oressa Campbell liked this post. Campbell was appointed as conflict counsel in cases Ellis prosecuted. They both served on the board of Pro Bono Partnerships Inc., Ellis as treasurer. The Pocono Review has previously reported on Campbell’s role in the White case and asked the question nobody else would: whose side was she on? She’s also Collins’s former law partner. Or current one. Nobody can say for certain. Collins joined Campbell Law Offices in 2013 and her biography still says so, in present tense. No departure has ever been announced.
A.G. Howell liked this post. He chose to let Ellis keep prosecuting in Meagher’s courtroom because every plea, every conviction, every closed case padded his office’s record. Howell’s office is now the subject of a federal civil rights lawsuit alleging he used criminal charges to collect his father’s legal bills.
The Wayne County Courthouse is not a person with opinions. It’s a government institution with a Facebook page. When it posts a tribute to a sitting ADA and credits him with never turning down a case, that’s an official institutional statement. It tells the public that Wayne County sees nothing wrong with the arrangement this publication has spent months documenting. It tells defendants, past and present, that the system that processed their cases considers Ellis’s conduct not just acceptable but award-worthy.
Who’s in the Photo?
If you recognize anyone pictured with ADA Ellis at the commissioners’ recognition, contact us at tips@poconoreview.com.
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