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Community Corner

DiBello Should Resign

Spring-Ford board member calls harassment complaint a political ploy

Tom DiBello

By Frank Otto, The Mercury

Posted: 11/17/13, 8:31 PM EST | Updated: 1 week, 4 days ago

LIMERICK — A local man filed a private criminal complaint against the Spring-Ford Area School Board’s president a week before this month’s election for an incident that stemmed from a June 2012 game of ding-dong-ditch.

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William Gervais filed the complaint, which is listed as a non-traffic offense, at District Judge Walter Gadzicki’s court Oct. 24 for physical harassment against his daughter. When asked about the complaint, DiBello told The Mercury it was politically motivated and that he was the one harassed.

“Basically, the whole thing is political. It’s been political,” said DiBello, who retained his seat on the school board in the Nov. 5 general election.

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DiBello entered a not guilty plea last week to the charge.

Gervais said he found out about the incident two days after it happened.

According to a police incident report sent to The Mercury anonymously, the Limerick Police began an investigation of the June 11, 2012 incident June 18, 2012, when Gervais approached them.

According to the police report, Gervais’ daughter and a friend, both of whose names were redacted from the report, played ding-dong-ditch at what turned out to be DiBello’s home on Fieldstone Lane around 10 p.m. the evening of June 11, 2012.

To play ding-dong-ditch, a person rings the doorbell of a home and runs away before the person who lives there can answer.

The report said the girls rang the doorbell, hid, then watched as DiBello came out and looked for who rang it. When the girls went back to the friend’s home where they were staying, DiBello allegedly “confronted them about ringing his doorbell” and asked them their names and if they lived in the area.

He told them to leave, the police report said, but then said, “As a matter of fact, you’re coming with me and I’m calling the cops.”

Police never interviewed DiBello and he confirmed to The Mercury that he “asked (the girls) who they were” and “brought them to the house.”

According to the report, Gervais’ daughter said DiBello grabbed them by their upper arms and began bringing them back to his residence but that the other girl pulled away. She said DiBello grabbed the other girl by her neck and hair, during which the girl “scream(ed) ‘ow, ow’.”

DiBello told The Mercury he never grabbed the girl by her neck.

Christine Zach, a neighbor, came over after hearing the noise, Gervais’ daughter told police. The neighbor asked what was going on, to which DiBello reportedly answered, “I just grabbed their arms.”

Zach allegedly told DiBello to “let them go” and “that it was a childish prank.”

He then reportedly let them leave, and Zach told the two girls to tell their parents what happened.

In his interview with The Mercury, DiBello said two neighborhood kids that the girls were staying with came over and said, “We’re sorry, we’re sorry.”

“I said, ‘Go home and tell them to knock it off,’” DiBello said.

The other girls’ presence and apology is noted in Gervais’ private criminal complaint but not in the document The Mercury received indicating initial interviews police conducted.

“Two other girls came to Mr. DiBello’s yard and apologized,” the Gervais private complaint reads. “Mrs. Zach was then permitted to walk away with the girls.”

Zach declined to speak with The Mercury about the incident when approached earlier this year.

DiBello said he was on edge due to a spate of crime in the area at the time of the incident.

“At that time, in my neighborhood, other neighborhoods, other cars had been vandalized,” he said. “It was late at night I caught these girls. I had no clue who they were. I’m not claiming they (commited the vandalism).”

He said he wasn’t sure who the girls were and wanted to make sure they weren’t up to anything else.

According to the police incident report, the father of the other girl involved in the ding-dong-ditch episode “was adamant” that he and his family “were not interested in pursuing any complaint against Tom DiBell(o) and (redacted) were not interested in speaking to me about the incident.”

The father also said his daughter would not testify against DiBello in court.

At the end of June, the Limerick Police spoke with Montgomery County Assistant District Attorney Gabriel Magee.

“Magee advised me that after hearing the information that our department obtained in this case, it was the decision of the DA’s office not to file charges,” the report read. “Magee stated that this behavior would not reach the level of criminal charges at all.”

Gervais maintained that the district attorney’s office should have waited until police interviewed Zach for her side of the story, which they did July 2, according to the incident report.

Zach confirmed what the investigation found earlier, including the arrival of the two girls apologizing.

If the Limerick Police had decided Zach’s information constituted it, they could have brought the case forward to the district attorney’s office again.

Limerick Police Chief Bill Albany said he was advised by counsel not to comment on the incident report when The Mercury brought it to him in the spring.

“This whole thing was reviewed by the authorities (who) said I didn’t do anything wrong or inappropriate,” DiBello told The Mercury. “Then, a week before the election, one father went in and filed this private complaint, which anybody can do.”

The complaint was referenced in a flyer circulated in the Spring-Ford area in the days leading up to November’s election.

The Mercury obtained a copy of it late last week from a resident in the area who received it.

Gervais’ complaint, with his signature crossed out, was attached to the flyer.

The flyer, headlined “Character Matters,” urged residents to “vote for Bob Weber on Nov. 5 for school board.”

Weber, a former Spring-Ford Area School Board member, was on the November ballot opposite DiBello and board vice president Joe Ciresi.

At the bottom of the flyer, it was indicated that it was “Paid for by the candidate.”

The flyer contained several other bullet points alluding to DiBello’s resignation from the Limerick Board of Supervisors in 2004 and touting Weber’s attributes and goals.

DiBello said he first heard about the police’s investigation into the ding-dong-ditch incident around the time of the primary election last spring.

When The Mercury asked Gervais about the timing of his complaint, just eight days before the general election, he said his ex-wife and child moved to another part of town and that seeing DiBello’s election signs “burned (him) up.”

“When you see those signs sitting everywhere you drive, it’s like a fly buzzing in your ear,” he said earlier this month.

Gervais’ daughter and ex-wife were against filing charges because he said they didn’t want any issues in school. His daughter attends school in the Spring-Ford Area School District, he said.

Within the complaint, Gervais alleges that the other family involved in the incident does not want to press charges because of DiBello’s position in the school district.

Although the district attorney’s office already reviewed the case and declined to prosecute, Gervais said, “I think there’s something there and so do the lawyers.”

According to DiBello, this is a bid by political enemies to smear his name.

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