THE HOPEWELL TOWNSHIP COMMISSIONERS APPROVED 4 EMPLOYMENT AGREEMENTS AT THEIR MEETING LAST NIGHT. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO WAS THERE. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report…

THE ALIQUIPPA ASSISTANT POLICE CHIEF FACES A HEARING TODAY. BEAVER COUNTY RADIO NEWS CORRESPONDENT SANDY GIORDANO HAS A PREVIEW. Click on ‘play’ to hear Sandy’s report…

The Beaver High School principal has resigned. Steve Wellendorf’s resignation will take effect Oct. 31, according to Superintendent Carrie Rowe. Wellendorf was placed on administrative leave in August. Details were never released because his leave was being treated as a personnel issue. Wellendorf and his religious group were accused of bullying Rowe because she is gay. The controversy created a rift in the school district. In a release, the district said Wellendorf is leaving his position “in good standing.” The release said Wellendorf was aware concerns prior to his leave were not related to his “religious beliefs affiliations or social opinions, nor were they the result of any personal animus directed toward him by any District employee or School Board member.” They also said the concerns did not involve criminal allegations.

Local officials are planning to meet with Central Valley School District representatives on a plan to add a Monaca police officer at Central Valley Middle School. It’s reported the position at the Allen Avenue school would be funded through grant money. The district already has a full-time armed school resource officer primarily stationed at the high school.

A Rochester couple is facing child endangerment charges after a boy was found wandering the streets in near-freezing temperatures last week. A mail carrier found the 17-month-old boy walking in the 400-block of Harmony Avenue Thursday morning in bare feet wearing a polo shirt and pajama pants. Evan Stevenson and Maranda Dunn were later arrested with Dunn freed on ten-thousand-dollars bond. Stevenson remains in custody.

A Rochester man arrested following a weekend standoff is being identified. Thomas Brantner is charged with aggravated assault and resisting arrest after he allegedly head-butted a woman at a nearby Sheetz, then retreated to his home on the 500-block of Connecticut Avenue Sunday morning. Brantner is in Beaver County Jail in lieu of 50-thousand-dollars bail.

An Ohio woman is accused of trying to take a loaded handgun through a TSA checkpoint at Pittsburgh International Airport Thursday. The Austintown woman is facing a civil fine, usually around 39-hundred dollars for the offense. It’s reportedly the 29th firearm found this year at the airport’s TSA checkpoint.

WEATHER FORECAST FOR TUESDAY, OCTOBER 23RD, 2018

TODAY – MOSTLY SUNNY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF A RAIN
SHOWER. HIGH – 55.

TONIGHT – PARTLY CLOUDY SKIES. LOW – 38.

WEDNESDAY – MOSTLY CLOUDY. SLIGHT CHANCE OF A
RAIN SHOWER. HIGH – 48.

Judge: Michael Avenatti must pay $4.85M in ex-lawyer’s suit
By AMANDA LEE MYERS and MICHAEL BALSAMO, Associated Press
LOS ANGELES (AP) — Porn actress Stormy Daniels’ lawyer Michael Avenatti must pay $4.85 million to an attorney who worked at his former law firm, a California judge ruled Monday, marking the first time the potential presidential candidate is being held personally liable in the lawsuit over back pay.
Los Angeles Superior Court Judge Dennis Landin ordered the payout by Avenatti because he had personally guaranteed a settlement with attorney Jason Frank. Frank alleged that Avenatti’s firm misstated its profits and that he was owed millions of dollars.
Avenatti, who is best known for representing Daniels in her lawsuit against President Donald Trump following an alleged 2006 affair, did not appear at Monday’s hearing and never filed arguments in the case.
He told The Associated Press that Frank owes him and the firm $12 million “for his fraud.” He did not provide details and declined to comment further. It’s unclear whether Avenatti has filed any litigation in the matter against Frank, whose attorney said Frank doesn’t owe Avenatti a dime.
Avenatti, who is toying with a possible 2020 presidential run, can appeal the ruling but since he never filed arguments about why he shouldn’t have to pay the $4.85 million, any such effort would be “dead in the water,” said Frank’s attorney, Eric George.
“He’s managed to delay this for ages,” George said. “At the end of the day, this is money that’s owed. No matter how you try to spin it, it comes back to the fact that he took money, it wasn’t his and now there’s a judgment saying it’s owed to my client.”
Asked whether he thinks Avenatti will pay the sum, George said that “it’ll be important to keep an eye on him and sources of money that are coming in, see what his assets are, and take it from there.”
Frank had worked at Avenatti’s former firm under an independent contractor agreement and was supposed to collect 25 percent of its annual profits, along with 20 percent of fees his clients paid, court documents say.
The action Monday comes after a U.S. bankruptcy court judge ordered Avenatti’s former firm to pay $10 million to Frank in May. The $4.85 million for which Avenatti is now personally liable is in addition to that judgment.
In July, the Justice Department accused Avenatti of making misrepresentations in the bankruptcy case and said his former law firm owed more than $440,000 in unpaid federal taxes.
Avenatti’s lawyer said at the time that the matter had been resolved. The Justice Department insisted that settlement negotiations were continuing but the debt was still owed.
The ruling against Avenatti comes a week after a federal judge dismissed Daniels’ defamation lawsuit against Trump, saying the president made a “hyperbolic statement” against a political adversary when he tweeted about a composite sketch that Avenatti has released.
Daniels, whose real name is Stephanie Clifford, sued Trump in April after he said a composite sketch of a man she said threatened her in 2011 to keep quiet about an alleged affair was a “con job.” Avenatti has appealed the ruling.
The defamation claim is separate from another lawsuit that Daniels filed against Trump, which is ongoing. Daniels was paid $130,000 as part of a nondisclosure agreement signed days before the 2016 election and is suing to dissolve that contract.
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Balsamo reported from Washington. Associated Press writer Catherine Lucey contributed from Washington.