Wyoming County District Attorney Joe Peters announced Wednesday that he will terminate the prosecution of county Children and Youth Services caseworker Gerald K. Pender in connection with a case of child neglect and abuse in Meshoppen.
Peters, in an emailed statement, cited a state Superior Court ruling issued Monday that addressed the issue of immunity from prosecution for employees of a county Children and Youth agency.
Peters said his office determined that Pender is granted immunity from criminal prosecution based on the ruling in the Adams County case of Commonwealth of Pennsylvania v. Kiessling, Depasqua and Murphy.
Pender, 47, will also be released from jail, where he has been held since his May 7 arrest, Peters said.
Police charged Pender and three others after an investigation that began in October 2024, when a 16-year-old girl with serious medical issues was taken into protective custody after she was found badly malnourished and living in deplorable conditions in her family’s Meshoppen home, according to a criminal complaint filed by state police.
Pender had been charged with felony counts of endangering the welfare of a child and endangering the welfare of a care-dependent person. The charges state that Pender failed to seek medical treatment for the victim, as a mandated reporter working in child services.
In his statement, Peters said he is “unhappy with the ultimate outcome” but has an obligation to the citizens of Wyoming County to uphold the constitutions of Pennsylvania and the United States, even if that means “terminating a prosecution in the interests of justice in order to comply with the law as it evolves in appellate court decisions.”
His statement continued:
“At the time Mr. Pender was charged by the PA State Police after an intense and thorough investigation, this appellate decision in Kiessling had not been rendered, and several other individuals employed by Children and Youth agencies in other counties around the state had been similarly prosecuted for Endangering the Welfare of Children and/or Endangering the Welfare of Care-dependent Persons. But for the immunity provided to Mr. Pender by the Superior Court decision in Kiessling, it is my firm belief that the facts of Mr. Pender’s case supported a prosecution for the crimes with which Mr. Pender had been charged beyond a reasonable doubt.”
Pender had been scheduled to appear for a plea hearing on Aug. 8 in Wayne County Court, to which his case was transferred after Wyoming County President Judge Russell Shurtleff recused himself.
Also charged in the case were the girl’s mother, Ashley E. Brewer; the girl’s father, William A. Schuster Jr.; and her grandmother, Deborah Graham.
Brewer and Schuster are charged with felony counts of aggravated assault, endangering the welfare of children and neglect of a care-dependent person, as well as misdemeanor counts of simple assault and recklessly endangering another person.
Graham faces a misdemeanor count of recklessly endangering another person.
Brewer is scheduled to appear for a plea hearing in Wyoming County Court on Friday. The same day, Schuster and Graham are scheduled to be formally arraigned in county court.
.