CLEARFIELD – The Pennsylvania Attorney General’s office withdrew the charges against John “Herm” Suplizio of DuBois during a preliminary hearing on the second set of charges against the former DuBois City Manager on Tuesday in Clearfield County Court.
Originally charges were filed on Suplizio in March and additional charges were announced in October with a preliminary hearing scheduled for November 28.
On Nov. 16, Suplizio, 63, was indicted by a federal grand jury on five counts of conspiracy and federal program fraud, along with Roberta Shaffer, 58, a city employee.
When asked Tuesday by specially presiding District Judge Carmine W. Prestia Jr, if the Commonwealth wanted to withdraw the charges, AG Mary Summer Fort Carroll responded yes, explaining federal agents have taken over both cases.
The original charges will not be prosecuted, and paperwork to reflect this will be filed in the Court of Common Pleas. Suplizio had waived his right to a hearing on those charges shortly after they were filed in March.
According to the federal Indictment, from 2014 to 2022, Suplizio and Shaffer conspired to divert and steal hundreds of thousands of dollars in city funds.
“As the full-time, salaried City Manager, Suplizio maintained substantial authority in DuBois, where he ran the city’s day-to-day operations. As alleged, beginning as early as 2008, Suplizio and Shaffer used the city’s tax identification number to establish secret bank accounts into which they diverted city money, including approximately $60,000 in annual administrative fees from the city’s waste management contract,” according to a press release from the United States Attorney’s Office of the Western District of Pennsylvania.
“Suplizio and Shaffer made large cash withdrawals from these unaudited accounts, wrote checks to themselves and others, and obtained cashier’s checks with themselves listed as payees—totaling more than $350,000,” it said in the release.
In addition, they “allegedly spent more than $450,000 from the accounts toward payments on Suplizio’s personal credit card, which he used to pay for personal vacations, utility bills for his residence, department store purchases, and jewelry store purchases, among other personal expenses.
“Herm Suplizio allegedly funneled city money into secret bank accounts that he and Shaffer controlled and that he could use for his personal benefit, including hundreds of thousands of dollars in personal credit card payments,” United States Attorney Eric G. Olshan said.
“Our communities entrust public officials like Suplizio with tremendous authority, and when that trust is violated—as is alleged here—this office and our federal and state law enforcement partners will hold them accountable to the fullest extent of the law.”
Motions for extensions of time to file pre-trial motions on both Suplizio and Shaffer’s federal cases have been granted with a new deadline of Jan. 2, according to court documents.
The charges stem from a search warrant executed on Suplizio’s residence and offices in April 2022, during which records of his banking activities and other accounts were seized, according to previous reports.
The state grand jury proceeding covered Suplizio’s finances starting in 2014.
Suplizio in addition to being City Manager since 2010, was also the Executive Director of the DuBois Area United Way, was affiliated with the DuBois Volunteer Fire Department and handled funds for DuBois Community Days.
Other accusations in the previous cases involve a bag with $93,920 in cash DuBois City Solicitor Toni Cherry turned over to the city in May.
The money came from the Community Fund and had been at the DuBois Area United Way Building, she said. Suplizio gave it to her “to keep the PA OAG from confiscating it”. She told the authorities she could not recall when he gave her the cash, according to the documents with the second case.
The money was placed into a new DuBois City account.
An investigation was also done into Suplizio’s JH Suplizio Battalion One Fire Equipment Company. The purpose of the company was to sell fire equipment to local fire departments which charged “a markup of about 50% of what the purchase price would have been if they had purchased directly from the manufacturer,” it says in the criminal complaint.
DuBois City residents have been angry about how the city is handling Suplizio’s employee contract with a lawsuit filed against the city prohibiting them from paying Suplizio, who is on leave, or buying out his contract. The injunction remains in effect.
For more details on the second set of charges, click here and for more on the original case, click here.