When he is sentenced in June, Kevin Esterly will get anywhere from 43-to-87 years behind bars after being convicted Thursday of sexually abusing a teenage girl, who was a good friend of his daughter's. Sara Moyer, with the Lehigh County DA's office, says Esterly manipulated the victim. "I think the center of her universe was Kevin Esterly. He made it that way. He took advantage of her vulnerabilities," Moyer says. In 2018 Esterly was convicted of corruption of minors for taking the same girl to Mexico without her parents' approval. After initially denying the two had a sexual relationship, the now 24-year-old woman told authorities last year that he sexually abused her beginning when she was 14 years of age.
Lehigh Carbon Community College will remain closed through Saturday as an IT outage continues to affect the school. L-Tri-C has released a statement saying, "Lehigh Carbon Community College is currently suffering an IT disruption and are investigating the issue. Our IT staff and partners are working to bring our systems back online.”
Police are searching for a person they believe witnessed a fatal crash last month in Upper Macungie Township. The two-vehicle crash happened about 6:15 p.m. Feb. 19 on Route 100 north of Wertman Road. Investigators smy a pickup truck going southbound crossed into the northbound lane and hit a sedan head-on. The driver of that sedan was 27-year-old Oneil Fletcher, of Lansford, Carbon County, who was killed. The 61-year-old Breinigsville truck driver suffered serious injuries. If you saw the crash or know who did, to contact police at 484-661-5911.
One person is dead after a Monroe County crash. Police say a woman was killed in a crash on Route 611 in Stroud Township. The accident happened just before 3 o'clock Thursday afternoon.
Like the Senate, the House failed to pass a war power resolution that would have limited President Trump's ability to further the attacks on Iran. Republican Sen. Dave McCormick was among those who helped kill the resolution in the Senate and says what President Trump is doing is nothing new. "Over the last 50 years Democrat presidents, Republican presidents have used military force when they felt like America's interests were at risk and there was an imminent threat," McCormick says. The House voted 219-212 against the resolution Thursday. Every Pennsylvania Democrat representative voted for the resolution. Every Pennsylvania Republican, including the Lehigh Valley's Ryan Mackenzie voted against it.
Governor Josh Shapiro is joining 23 other states in a lawsuit to block President Trump's new tariffs just weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court found his previous levies illegal. The lawsuit asks the U.S. Court of International Trade to stop implementation of the new tariffs which the President is imposing based on a 1974 Trade Act Law that's never been used before. On social media yesterday, Shapiro said the Supreme Court "got it right," but the president decided to double down instead of following the law. The governor added that the tariffs have "done nothing but cause chaos and raise prices" for farmers, small businesses, and families.
New Jersey is among two dozen states suing to block President Trump's new tariffs two weeks after the U.S. Supreme Court found his previous levies illegal. New York Attorney General Letitia James is leading the lawsuit filed Thursday in the U.S. Court of International Trade, and is asking judges to stop the President's new tariffs, which he imposed based on a 1974 Trade Act Law that has never been used. New Jersey Attorney General Jennifer Davenport said in a statement that the Trump Administration is using a section of law that does not apply to their argument, saying "a trade deficit is not a balance-of-payment deficit, so there is no basis in the statute for imposing these tariffs."
A local school gets a taste of March Madness tonight. For the 18th time overall and seventh time since 2017 the DeSales University women's basketball team is in the NCAA Division III Tournament. The Bulldogs visit Ohio Wesleyan University tonight in the first round of the tournament. DeSales is 19-8, while the Battling Bishops are 20-5, but have lost their last three games.