Piner family at center of two lawsuits

Brothers claim misconduct in drug investigation, arrests

The NAACP concerns about Operation Our Town expressed last month in a report by the agency's president, Andrae M. Holsey, are not new, according to documents filed in the U.S. District Court in Johnstown.

Holsey, who became NAACP president following the death of Don Witherspoon two years ago, stated that in reviewing records of the organization he found a 2012 memorandum by the longtime president challenging the way Operation Our Town funds the County's Drug Task force.

The memorandum, he said, caught his attention.

He went on to say, "We found that one family, the Piner family, was targeted at a higher level than any other Drug Court defendants in the entirety of records since 2011."

He continued, noting "Reviews of public records indicate allegations of law enforcement misconduct by Kenneth and Stephen Piner may be founded. We have recommended them to appropriate sources to pursue legal remedies."

Ken Piner, 63, and his brother Stephen, 64, are currently serving long prison terms imposed by Blair County judges.

The Piners and other members of their family were arrested in 2011 as part of Operation Last Call in which police dismantled a Baltimore-to-Altoona cocaine ring that was headquartered at the former Corner Bar.

The leader of the organization was identified as Damion Floyd of Baltimore, but, according to Blair County District Attorney Pete Weeks, the Piners were significant distributors of the cocaine brought to the bar where it was processed and packaged for street sale.

The brothers have each filed appeals of their convictions and lengthy sentences to the federal court in Johnstown.

But two of the lawsuits focus on the police investigation that led to the takedown of the Baltimore-based organization.

Ken Piner in his appeal is contesting his conviction and sentence by filing a federal court petition that attacks the initial grand jury indictment because, he claims, it was inferred that he was involved in the murder of a police informant. He denied any part in the murder and was never charged,

He also indicated his displeasure with the police who indicated he and Stephen were conducting an alleged "drug distribution organization."

Piner's legal brief, filed on Sept. 7, also criticizes Operation Our Town, the nonprofit group created in 2007 to address the Altoona area's drug problems through business contributions by funding prevention and treatment programs and bolstering law enforcement efforts.

Piner doesn't mention Our Town by name, but stated his appeals counsel was ineffective for not investigating "this private, special interest, nonprofit organization, particularly as it applies to the federal and state checks and balances system.

He points out that Weeks was initially hired with Our Town funds as a special drug prosecutor in 2007.

He maintains having a nonprofit paying the salary of a prosecutor creates a conflict of interest, violates federal and state laws and violates a defendant's due process rights.

Ken Piner's petition is under review by U.S. Magistrate Judge Keith A. Pesto. He was assigned the Piner case by U.S. District Judge Kim R. Gibson.

The second federal lawsuit that concerns Ken Piner was filed last March in which three young adults, Matthew, Rebecca and Isaac Krause, are seeking redress because they say police and Blair County Children, Youth & Families removed them from their home in 2008 as a way to force their parents to cooperate in a police drug investigation.

The three young children were placed in a Clearfield County foster home operated by Barbara and Timothy Krause.

The Krauses, who adopted the children, were eventually arrested for physically and mentally abusing the Blair County children under their care.

Those children are now grown and have obtained attorneys Roy Huntsman of Cedar Hills, Utah, and Mart Harris of Pittsburgh to represent them in their federal lawsuit.

One of the defendants in the lawsuit is retired law enforcement officer Randy Feathers of Altoona.

Feathers, at the time the children were removed from their homes, was the regional director of the attorney general's narcotics strike force.

The children were removed from their familial home on Oct. 20, 2008.

Feathers, who a month ago answered the lawsuit, stated he was present that day in his capacity as the director of the strike force but denied he removed the children from their parents.

The removal was made, he stated, by Blair County CYF.

He denies the charge that he attempted to interfere with the familial relations between parents and children as a way to coerce the parents into cooperating with the drug investigation.

Feathers is being represented in the lawsuit by Deputy Attorney General Michael P. Gaetani.

Huntsman, when contacted, said the lawsuit on behalf of the children is in its early stages and he would not reveal the names of the parents, but Ken Piner in his Sept. 7 legal brief stated the children in the civil lawsuit were his grandchildren.

He stated, "Randy Feathers who is named as a defendant in a civil rights lawsuit because he initiated the removal of Piner's grandchildren from their homes with the specific purpose of interfering with the childrens' familial relations to coerce family members as part of a police investigation, had his hands in this investigation from its inception."

He went on to name Feathers and others as active supporters of Operation Our Town.

"The objective circumstances of this organization is to establish an actual conflict," Piner said in his legal brief.

Huntsman said he knows of the Piner name but noted the children's birth family does not bear the Piner name.

U.S. District Judge Stephanie L. Haines has referred the Krause case to the federal court's Alternative Dispute Resolution program.

A mediation conference to discuss an out-of-court settlement is scheduled for Jan. 24, with Louis Kushner serving as mediator.