A Shavertown attorney sentenced to serve up to six years in state prison for causing a deadly wrong-way crash after drinking a bottle of vodka on the Northeast Extension of the Pennsylvania Turnpike has had his conviction overturned, with the state Superior Court finding that his constitutional rights were violated during the investigation.
Joseph Persico, 75, was sentenced to serve three to six years in prison on homicide by vehicle while driving under the influence, involuntary manslaughter and related charges for causing the wrong-way crash while driving home drunk from a Villanova University basketball game on Nov. 6, 2018.
Scranton resident Paul Gerrity, a 50-year-old toll worker on his way home from a shift on the turnpike, was killed in the crash that also seriously injured the driver of a third car, Pan Tso, of Wilmington, Delaware.
In imposing the sentence in February 2024, Carbon County Judge Joseph J. Matika called Persico an “alcoholic” who downplayed a disease that resulted in police finding him in the wreckage with a half-consumed bottle of Pinnacle Vodka and a blood-alcohol level of 0.22% — nearly three times the legal limit for driving.
But Persico, a one-time managing partner at the Wilkes-Barre law firm Rosenn, Jenkins & Greenwald, appealed his conviction via Scranton-based defense attorney Paul Walker, arguing the blood drawn at Lehigh Valley Hospital–Cedar Crest in Allentown violated his constitutional rights.
In court documents, Persico argued Matika should have suppressed the results of the blood draw because there was no evidence hospital personnel drew the blood for independent medical purposes.
Instead, the blood was taken for purposes of the criminal case state police were initiating — without having previously established probable cause, he argued.
In an opinion filed Tuesday, Superior Court judges Jack A. Panella, Kate Ford Elliott and Jill Beck agreed.
The judges noted that the hospital drew Persico’s blood and locked it in a vial, but did not analyze it for alcohol until troopers obtained a search warrant more than a month later.
“No evidence of record indicates that (the hospital) drew Persico’s blood for independent medical purposes and all the evidence reflects that the blood draw occurred pursuant to the hospital’s perceived duty under (the motor vehicle statute),” the judges wrote. “Based on the foregoing, the blood draw violated Persico’s rights under both the Fourth Amendment to the United States Constitution and Article I, Section 8 of the Pennsylvania Constitution and the trial court erred in denying his motion to suppress the results of his blood draw.”
The judges went on to write that the search warrants troopers subsequently filed to get the sample of Persico’s blood “did not cure the defect of the illegal blood draw.”
As a result, the judges vacated Persico’s conviction and remanded the case back to the Court of Common Pleas of Carbon County for further proceedings.
Reached for comment Thursday, Carbon County District Attorney Michael S. Greek said his office was reviewing the opinion and determining whether to appeal to the Pennsylvania Supreme Court.
Persico, who has been confined to a wheelchair after being injured in an incident unrelated to the crash, has been free on $150,000 during his appeals process.
In May 2019, Gerrity’s estate, which was controlled by his sister, Donna Gerrity of Jim Thorpe, agreed to a $1.3 million settlement of a lawsuit filed against Persico and State Farm Insurance, Paul Gerrity’s insurer, according to court records.