(File Photo: Source for Photo: Military personnel search for Sudiksha Konanki, a university student from the U.S. who disappeared on a beach in Punta Cana, Dominican Republic, Monday, March. 10, 2025. (AP Photo/Francesco Spotorno)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Santo Domingo, Dominican Republic) A statement was released on Friday by the parents of the last person to allegedly see Sudiksha Konanki, a University of Pittsburgh student who has been missing in the Dominican Republic. The parents of twenty-two-year-old Joshua Riibe are hoping that Konanki gets found and that their son has cooperated completely with clarifying facts as well as the search for her. Konanki was in Punta Cana with a group of several people before she went missing. 

(File Photo of the Beaver County Jail)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Beaver County, PA) A man from Koppel Borough was arrested after making disturbing notes to an unidentified female victim. Nineteen-year-old Dylan Bish was the suspect who wrote a note that was brought to police by the victim which involved a phone number on it in November. A second note was found which involved threats to kill her and threats of harassment because of his obsession with her in February. Bish has a $1 million bond and is now in the Beaver County Jail.

(File Photo of Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Badge)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Brighton Township, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a woman from Zanesville, Ohio caused a single-vehicle crash in Brighton Township last Monday. Twenty-one-year-old Alexandra Wright hit the guide wire on the left of the road with her vehicle on I-376 East. Wright was transported privately after the incident occurred and sustained no injuries. No charges were filed against Wright. 

(File Photo of Police Lights)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Potter Township, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a man from Beaver crashed his motorcycle on I-376 East on Tuesday. Thirty-eight-year-old Stephen Zak’s motorcycle wobbled after he got into the left lane when passing another vehicle. A concrete barrier was hit by Zak before he stopped. According to police, Zak was transported to the Beaver Valley Medical Center for a suspected serious injury and no charges were filed against him.

(File Photo of Pennsylvania State Police Trooper Badge)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Shippingport Borough, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a man from Aliquippa was arrested on Friday for not restraining his dog after it attacked a dog owned by his neighbor multiple times. Fifty-nine-year-old Kevin Meredith of East Liverpool, Ohio complained that the Pitbull of thirty-one-year-old Tyler Tharp did not get restrained. According to police, Tharp was given a notice to comply because of improper confinement and control of the dog.

(File Photo of the Shell Cracker Plant in Monaca)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Monaca, PA) Shell Polymers Monaca will be performing activity for maintenance in their Ethylene Cracking Unit after flares and emission occurred on both Thursday and Friday. There was no immediate threat to the surrounding community, neighbors in the industry or those that were operating onsite. These teams onsite will try to minimize community impacts during this process. If you have any questions, please contact 844-766-5581. 

(Photo Provided with Release)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(New Sewickley Township, PA) According to a release from The New Sewickley Township Police Department, the identity was released for a deceased man that was killed after a brush fire occurred in Beaver County on Thursday. The identity of the man was released by police. He was eighty-six-year-old Charles Flook of New Sewickley Township. The fire that was around one acre was able to be handled. The cause of death for Flook is not determined at this time.

(File Photo of City of Aliquippa Police Department Police Car)

Noah Haswell, Beaver County Radio News

(Aliquippa, PA) Pennsylvania State Police in Beaver report that a man from Aliquippa was jailed for firing around twenty rounds of shots in Aliquippa on Saturday. Twenty-seven-year-old Davonte Odom used an assault rifle to fire shots at the front door at 380 Linmar Terrace. The victim was a juvenile female who was located on the second floor. According to police, Odom turned himself in and is in the Beaver County Jail facing several charges including aggravated assault.

(File Photo: Source for Photo: FILE – People look at broken glass from a rear door of the Everhart Museum, Friday, Nov. 18, 2005, in Scranton, Pa. (Mike Mullen/The Times-Tribune via AP)

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) — A Pennsylvania man who was part of a group that stole paintings by Andy Warhol and Jackson Pollock among other valuables was sentenced to eight years in federal prison after pleading guilty to theft of major artwork.

Thomas Trotta, 49, of Dunmore, is the fourth person sentenced as part of the investigation into thefts that took place over more than two decades at 20 museums, stores and institutions. World Series rings that once belonged to baseball great Yogi Berra were among the stolen items.

Trotta was directed to pay $2.8 million in restitution as part of his sentencing Thursday. He had already been jailed.

His lawyer, Joe D’Andrea, said Friday that Trotta was “the main burglar, he was the one that went into the institutions and burglarized them.”

Gino Bartolai, attorney for defendant Nicholas Dombek, who awaits sentencing after Trotta testified against him and two others, said he sees eight years as a short sentence considering the many burglaries that Trotta has admitted to committing.

“The coin of the realm when you cooperate is you get a break,” Bartolai said. “And that’s what he got — he got a big break.”

Bartolai said a sentencing date for Dombek, 54, of Thornhurst, and the other two men has not been scheduled. D’Andrea called Trotter the main government witness against the three.

Many of the stolen artworks and other material remains unknown, federal prosecutors said Friday. The thefts occurred in Pennsylvania, New Jersey, New York, Massachusetts, Rhode Island, North Dakota and Washington, D.C.

Trotta admitted to stealing the Warhol silkscreen “Le Grande Passion” and Pollock’s 1949 oil-on-canvas painting “Springs Winter” from the Everhart Museum in Scranton, Pennsylvania, in 2005, prosecutors said. In that theft, the thieves were apparently aided by a large tent covering the back entrance for an event as they shattered a glass door. The Pollock painting was estimated in 2023 to have been worth nearly $12 million.

“Springs Winter” had been on loan to the museum from a private collector. “Le Grande Passion,″ owned by the museum, was created in 1984 on commission for an ad campaign for Grand Passion cognac. An official at the museum said Friday those works have not been recovered.

D’Andrea said Trotter believed he knew where the paintings had ended up in Newark, New Jersey.

“He thought he did,” D’Andrea said. “But when the authorities went to the place he thought it was, they couldn’t find them.”

Prosecutors said Trotta also admitted to stealing rings and MVP plaques worth a collective $500,000 from the Yogi Berra Museum and Learning Center in Little Falls, New Jersey. He was also implicated in the theft of a Tiffany lamp, boxing and horse racing items, and items linked to baseball slugger Roger Maris and golf legend Ben Hogan.

Berra’s rings are thought to have been melted down and sold for far less than they were worth as baseball memorabilia. Gold nuggets worth hundreds of thousands of dollars were taken from Sterling Hill Mining Museum in Ogdensburg, New Jersey.

“Upper Hudson,” an 1871 painting by Jasper Cropsey estimated to be worth $100,000 or more, was apparently burned in an effort to conceal the crime, according to the U.S. attorney’s office. It was taken in 2011 from Ringwood Manor in Ringwood, New Jersey.