Hey, Wait! That's My...

This story originally appeared on Wednesday, March 5, 2008

WEST CHESTER – Something looked familiar to Frank Nagy.

Specifically, the chain saw he spotted at a pawn shop in Pottstown, where he had gone after failing to find a replacement for his missing chain saw at one of the big box retailers. Specifically, the Husquavarna Model 23 chain saw with the plastic blade cover. Specifically, the same chain saw that had until a few weeks ago been sitting in the shed at the rear of his home on Ridge Road in East Coventry.

Specifically, the chain saw that his grandson, Stephen Allen Wisneski later admitted taking from the shed without telling anyone, then pawning it supposedly to buy food to feed his family.

The unlikely discovery of the chain saw eventually led to Wisneski's arrest on charges of burglary and theft and to an unusual plea bargain hearing in front of Judge William Mahon on Tuesday.

Although Wisneski acknowledged that he had taken the chain saw from his grandfather's shed to use on his own, he said he had not “stolen” it but rather “borrowed” the equipment. He said he got the chain saw mixed up with other tools that he took to he Cash Converters store in Pottstown to pawn them.

He said he had intended to tell his grandparents about the matter but had forgotten. But his grandfather had told police at the time of Wiseneski's arrest that he hadn't seen the man in years.

According to an arrest affidavit filed by East Coventry police, Nagy reported that he had gone looking for his chain saw the morning of Oct. 11 to do some work on the property. When he could not find it, he assumed he had misplaced it and went shopping for an inexpensive replacement.

After failing to find an acceptable model at the local home and hardware store, Nagy stopped by Cash Converters, which buys and re-sells used equipment. When he began looking at the equipment Cash Converters had on sale, he saw the chain saw he recognized immediately as his own there, he told police.

Nagy reported the matter to the store manager, and contacted police. When East Coventry Officer Brian Ceulers arrived to pick the chain saw up as evidence, the manager turned over the seller's information sheet, which was signed by Wisneski when he sold it on Oct. 3.

Nagy identified Wisneski as his grandson. He told police that Wisneski had later called his home and apologized for asking the saw, saying he did so to raise money to feed his kids. Nagy confirmed that Wisneski did not have permission to take the saw and that he had not spoken to him or seen him in two years.

When Ceulers contacted Wisneski, he said he was sorry for taking the saw and asked if charges could be dropped. When Wisneski said they could not, he told the officer that he was awaiting placement in a drug treatment program. He was arrested on Dec. 12.

Wisneski, 27, of Nutt Road, Phoenixville, was offered a sentence of six to 23 months in Chester County Prison in exchange for a guilty plea to charges of theft. But when he balked at admitting to actually stealing the saw, Mahon rejected the plea and sent Wisneski back to prison, where he is being held on a probation violation for a previous theft case, according to Assistant District Attorney Christin Kubacke, who was handling the plea.

Wisneski's case will now be rescheduled for trial. The saw is currently being held as evidence by police.

Recalling Bitter/Better Days

This appeared on Sunday, April 8, 2007

It was one of the oddest stories I have ever covered.

In August 1988, my editor dispatched me to Valley Forge National Park, where the Ku Klux Klan was holding a hate rally.

I remember being miserable, and not simply because I would have to spend several hours covering what essentially was a non-event. It was a typical summer afternoon in northeast Chester County — hot and muggy, or what we journalists like to refer to as ”sun drenched“ — the type of afternoon I‘d rather spend sitting in an air conditioned theater watching the latest Scorsese.

I say non-event because there really was no news taking place that afternoon, in the sense that no one was being elected, no flooding had occurred, no politicians were being indicted. The news had already passed, after the Klan announced that they were going to rally at the park and the Park Service let them.

What remained was a bunch of slightly overweight white men dressed in the strange garb of the Klan, standing on an amphitheater that bore a vague resemblance to Stonehenge (prompting more than one droll aside from reporters about the intelligence of those participating in the rally), and saying not really much of anything.

If I dug out the story I wrote that day I could find a quote or two to share with you — something dealing with superiority or separation or subjugation or some such. But what struck me at the time was the lack of interest the Klan folks who spoke seemed to have for what they themselves were saying. They didn‘t put much passion into their declarations, and they drifted from one subject to another haphazardly.

Their main interest came from getting a reaction from the few people who gathered to protest their appearance. The crowd, such as it was, was separated from the Klansmen by a storm fence the park people had erected to keep the sides apart. The fence was 50 or more feet from the stage, I recall, so you had two groups yelling at one another from a block away. Not much excitement there.

The whole situation quickly became ridiculous, and I stayed only as long as I needed to, filling up about less than half my notebook before flipping it shut.

The scene came back to me last week after I took an afternoon drive to Valley Forge, hoping to see the park‘s flowering trees in full blossom. They weren‘t, so instead my mind wandered back to other days spent there.

I remember touring the historical aspects of the park with my mother, who never met a vacation that didn‘t involve some educational opportunity. I also remember a summer picnic with a young woman I was enamored with at the time, and who I thought would be impressed with my ability to wrap cold chicken in Saran Wrap and open a bottle of white wine with a corkscrew. (She wasn‘t.) I remember also seeing the flowering trees on Gulph Road Hill tinted with snow after a freak storm one late April morning.

And I felt better letting those memories overtake all that hate I had seen, that one hot summer day in August 1988.