Phili News

A Philadelphia child is dead and his parents in custody, charged with beating and starving the boy to death. More >

Ray Lewis, the retired Philadelphia police captain who became a hero to the Occupy Wall Street movement, will not face legal consequences for wearing his old uniform at protests, a Police Department spokesman said Monday.

“He will not be arrested,” said Lt. Raymond Evers, spokesman for Police Commissioner Charles H. Ramsey. “He’s exercising his First Amendment rights, and we’re fine with that,” Evers said.

The union representing journalists at Philadelphia’s two largest newspapers says it might challenge the latest round of newsroom layoffs. Philadelphia Media Network plans to cut 45 positions at The Philadelphia Inquirer, Philadelphia Daily News and Philly.com this month.

The cuts come as hedge-fund owners seek to sell the company after 18 months. Twenty-one unionized staffers are taking buyouts, and 19 more will be laid off. The company is also cutting five non-union employees.

Fox 29 has learned that the former chief financial officer of the Archdiocese of Philadelphia was placed under arrest on Tuesday. Anita Guzzardi turned herself into police in Philadelphia on Tuesday morning and is facing embezzlement charges.

She is accused of stealing nearly $1 million from the Archdiocese, by writing 184 checks from church accounts between 2005 and 2011.

The case against a man accused of driving an SUV onto the runway at Philadelphia International Airport is being transferred to federal court. A federal criminal complaint charges 24-year-old Kenneth Mazik with disrupting airport service, damaging the facility and endangering safety.

Police say Mazik drove his sport utility vehicle through a fence and sped up and down two airport runways on March 1 before being surrounded and apprehended.

A Philadelphia woman who faked having cancer to avoid reporting to prison has been ordered to spend nearly five years behind bars for obstruction and fraud committed during her medical scam.

LeAnn Moock was sentenced Thursday by a federal judge in Philadelphia. She pleaded guilty in November to charges including obstruction and aggravated identity theft involving her father.

Natural causes led to the death of a former Philadelphia archdiocese leader the day after he was ruled competent to testify at the child endangerment trial of a longtime aide, according to a county coroner who investigated after a suburban prosecutor deemed the timing peculiar.

The Jan. 31 death of Cardinal Anthony Bevilacqua at a suburban seminary was caused by heart disease, with a contributing factor of prostate cancer, Montgomery County Coroner Walter Hofman said Thursday at a news conference. Scans of Bevilacqua’s brain also showed evidence of dementia that was “fairly advanced,” Hofman said.

The man who allegedly drove his Jeep through a fence and onto the airfield at Philadelphia International Airport was arraigned on local charges Monday and ordered to be held on $1 million bail.

The Philadelphia District Attorney’s office said Kenneth Richard Mazik, 24, of Chadds Ford, was charged on Monday with DUI, simple assault, aggravated assault, resisting arrest and other charges – not only for the incident at the airport, but for also allegedly assaulting officers during his arrest.

A Roman Catholic monsignor charged with protecting predator-priests lost a last-minute bid to have criminal charges dismissed Monday, and the first jurors were seated in his landmark case in Philadelphia.

Monsignor William Lynn had asked to have the child-endangerment and conspiracy case against him thrown out based on new evidence found in a 10th floor safe at the Archdiocese of Philadelphia.

A priest charged with raping a teen while on leave from the Philadelphia archdiocese will go on trial next month in a church conspiracy case, despite defense objections.

A judge refused Thursday to give the Rev. James Brennan a separate trial. Brennan, 49, wants a short trial involving a single accuser. Instead, he will be at the defense table for months while prosecutors seek to build a conspiracy and child-endangerment case against Monsignor William Lynn, the long-time secretary for clergy. Prosecutors plan to air sex-abuse complaints lodged against two dozen priests over several decades to show Lynn kept problem priests around children.