Alfred J. Howell has been Wayne County’s district attorney through a run of scrutiny this outlet has tracked closely, starting with a federal lawsuit accusing him of using criminal charges to collect his own father’s legal bills in the prosecution of Joseph Cordaro. A procedural audit of the Cordaro case found Howell signed the charging document himself after his father filed the complaint, never referred the case to the Attorney General’s office, and collected restitution that covered his father’s legal bills — with supporting court records backing each finding.
Records requests have gone nowhere either — Howell denied case records to an inmate he’d personally prosecuted, and stayed silent on cases handled by a state trooper later convicted of evidence tampering. His office’s plea deals raise their own questions: in one case, a defendant facing nine first-degree felonies served six months.
That same PSP troop has its own accountability problems — this outlet found two officers who reported payroll fraud were themselves punished, with one reassigned to patrol the very counties Howell’s office covers.
If it happens in the Wayne County DA’s office and it’s of public interest, we’ll cover it — check back here to stay current.
You can also find more articles about Ellis Law Group, the firm at the center of several cases tied to Howell’s office, and about the Wayne County Bar Association, whose sitting president appears in the Cordaro case record.
Commonwealth v. Joseph Cordaro: The Extraction This is Part 2 of a two-part article. Part 1 covers the conflicts, the judge, the complaint, the $1.00 deed, and the evidence the case was built on. The companion procedural audit documents 28 findings with rule-by-rule citations. Fact Opinion Nineteen charges, seven days before the plea On...
Commonwealth v. Joseph Cordaro: How Three Families Ran a Criminal Case in Wayne County The following is editorial analysis, not a news report. Factual claims are sourced from the criminal docket, the incident report, billing records, the Pre-Sentence Investigation, and exhibits filed in the federal civil rights complaint, Cordaro v. Howell et al., Case No....
CP-64-CR-0000272-2024 — Court of Common Pleas of Wayne County, 22nd Judicial District This document is a procedural audit. It identifies departures from standard criminal procedure, judicial conduct rules, and rules of professional responsibility as reflected in the case record. All findings are sourced to specific documents. Source materials: Criminal docket sheet, all 16 pages, printed...
This page contains the source documents referenced in the procedural audit of Commonwealth v. Joseph Cordaro. Documents are organized by audit finding number. Each image can be viewed full-size by clicking or opening in a new tab. Source materials include the complete 16-page criminal docket (printed June 12, 2026), exhibits from the federal civil rights...
Part 3 of the Ellis Law Group investigation examines how Brendan Ellis's role as ADA under District Attorney Alfred J. Howell affects Judge Jessica Ellis's court.
Lt. Derek Felsman now runs Troop R patrol across Wayne, Pike, Susquehanna, and Lackawanna counties after a federal lawsuit alleges PSP punished him for reporting felony-level theft by fellow troopers. Part 3 of the Pocono Review's Honesdale barracks investigation.
Court records reveal DA A.G. Howell personally prosecuted Paul Wassel in 2016 using PSP Honesdale evidence. Years later, Howell's office denied Wassel's public records request about convicted evidence-tamperer Brian Rickard — the same barracks where his case originated.
Brian Rickard, former PSP Criminal Investigation Unit supervisor at Troop R Honesdale, pleaded guilty to stealing heroin from evidence and tampering with records. Three years later, Wayne County DA A.G. Howell has not said whether cases he investigated were reviewed or defendants notified.
Wayne County DA A.G. Howell's office prosecuted local attorney Michael Farley on nine first-degree felonies. He pleaded to misdemeanors and served six months. Every judge recused. The DA did not.