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Resident urges DuBois mayor to step down after defendant's guilty plea
Summary
At public comment, resident Sean Leskie urged the mayor to relinquish the gavel after a local defendant changed a not-guilty plea to guilty; council members declined to comment, citing solicitor advice and ongoing court proceedings.
During the Aug. 5 DuBois City Council meeting, resident and local reporter Sean Leskie told the council that members who publicly supported an accused official should take action after the defendant changed a plea to guilty in a recent hearing. Leskie explicitly called for the mayor to "step down," saying the mayor had forfeited the right to lead the council.
"Your leadership, given the fact that you've stood behind the accused who's taken millions of dollars from the city, I think that you should step down," Leskie said. He urged other council members to move to remove the mayor's gavel that night.
Council members did not comply; several council members and the deputy mayor later said they had been advised by the solicitor not to comment on ongoing criminal matters until sentencing is complete. Deputy Mayor Whitaker said, "we were told by our solicitor that we were not to speak out or say anything about the Clark case or the Suplizio case until sentencing is finished." The solicitor's advice was cited repeatedly as the reason for restraint.
The exchange highlighted tensions between the community's demand for personal accountability and legal limits on municipal officials' public comments about pending criminal proceedings. No formal motion to remove the mayor was made during the meeting, and council members continued with agenda items after the public comment period.
