This guy honestly isn’t the kind of help we need, but I’m rather curious about the charges here, since he was picked up on Luzerene County Community College’s main campus:
Police charged Christian A. Zaccagni Sr., 47, of Dana Street, Wilkes-Barre, with firearms not to be carried without a license and possessing a weapon on school property. He was arraigned by District Judge Donald Whittaker and jailed at the county correctional facility for lack of $10,000 bail.
Emphasis mine. The problem is that Pennsylvania’s statute in regards to possession on school property is limited to:
… any elementary or secondary publicly-funded educational institution, any elementary or secondary private school licensed by the Department of Education or any elementary or secondary parochial school …
And with an exception if a weapon “is possessed for other lawful purpose.” Now given that he was carrying unlawfully, that exception might be difficult for him to claim. But a community college is not an elementary or secondary school. Violation is a first degree misdemeanor, which is a prohibiting offense for firearms federally if convicted. If this is indeed a charge, it’s a bogus one.
This guy has been in trouble with drugs and providing false ID to police in the past, from what it looks like. This would make him ineligible for an LTCF in Pennsylvania, so even though the application was apparently “sitting on my China cabinet (at home),” that grades the gun carrying offense to a felony of the third degree.
UPDATE: Just discovered those charges were dismissed, so the carry charge is only a felony of the third degree with the school charge. If the school charge gets tossed, he’s down to an M1 for the carrying without a license charge.
Plea bargain tactic. “If you plead to unlicensed possession we’ll drop the school possession charge”
Yeah, that’s my take: SOP of throw the book at ’em, and see what charges actually stick.
Your post just highlight another nit I must pick with this reporter. In addition to the whole “license to own a gun” bit, why is he capitalizing the word china? Unless the gun owner happened to have a cabinet for the purposes of storing the country, it is not a proper noun.
Sorry, this just screams lazy, which makes me wonder how much he might have screwed up his reporting on the charge, too.
The past charges from 2003 were dropped by the DA citing a lack of evidence. I love the UJS portal, but there a too many people walking around with UJS scars after being found not guilty or charges being dropped.
Is an M1 offense enough to make him prohibited?