Breaking News
News

Marino, Kiessling visit polls during the primary

By Mark Maroney 7 min read

Two familiar faces in Lycoming County government greeted voters outside of the Old Lycoming Township polling station in Tuesday's primary election.

Tom Marino and Charles E. Kiessling Jr. stopped by the normally busy fire station on Dewey Avenue.

Marino, 70, is a Republican running unopposed for Lycoming County district attorney, while Kiessling is running unopposed as coroner.

For Marino, this is "full circle in a career launched as district attorney," the office he served in from 1992 to 2002.

Marino also served as a private practice attorney, U.S. attorney for the Middle District and was a member of the House of Representatives.

He also co-chaired former President Donald J. Trump's 2016 statewide campaign for president.

In September 2017, Trump, who is a presidential candidate in 2024, nominated Marino to serve as the director of the Office of National Drug Control Policy "drug czar."

Marino withdrew his nomination in October of that year. He also broke with Trump in 2022 after Trump's decision not to endorse former Congressman Lou Barletta in the Republican primary election for governor.

When the district attorney position was open by Republican D.A. Ryan C. Gardner not running for re-election and instead running for a judge seat, Marino, who had a residence in Florida with his wife, decided to run for district attorney.

Until his district attorney candidacy announcement, Marino and his wife's residence question resulted in two challenges made to invalidate his candidacy. One challenge was dismissed by a judge, appealed to the Commonwealth Court of Pennsylvania, and dismissed again. The other has been sent for review by the Pennsylvania attorney general.

Nonetheless, Marino told the Sun-Gazette that he received numerous calls from county residents telling him to run again.

Each of these county positions, coroner and district attorney, is uniquely interconnected.

The district attorney acts as the solicitor for the coroner during the coroner's inquests (deaths under mysterious circumstances that are investigated for a cause) and often, sadly, investigates homicides, including those related to the use of illegal drugs.

"Chuck, I told them I work for you," Marino said. "I am your solicitor, according to the law, at any coroner's inquest."

Each pledged to tackle the surging overdose deaths, a dozen of which have been linked to illegal drugs this year alone in the county, which, Kiessling said, is on pace to exceed a few of those numbers in previous years.

Each candidate expressed a fierce determination to make people aware of the latest drugs hitting the streets, specifically about the dangerous and deadly Xylazine, a horse tranquilizer that is claiming lives, sometimes leaving festering sores on the users' skin and is unable to be reversed with Narcan, as is heroin and fentanyl.

Kiessling remarked on how he would keep doing what he has been for the past 24 years. Both are concerned about the fentanyl use by addicts.

"Yeah," Kiessling said, adding, "fentanyl is just crazy."

Marino said as county district attorney chief among his goals will be to track down who is selling who the drugs and get these individuals and organizations prosecuted and put in prison for long periods of time.

"If the fentanyl is found to have caused a death that will be a homicide," Marino said.

Meanwhile, Kiessling just received test kits for Xylazine.

"We can start to swab the product," he said. "We can start testing it that way."

Currently, the lab that is used by the county to do its testing can't test for Xylazine.

"They (the lab) are in the process of adding it to its panel but it costs a lot of money," Kiessling said.

The oral swabs are done at a lab in Monessen and the toxicology report results are returned to the county within 48 hours.

"We can say this person died with fentanyl, cocaine or heroin," he said.

That information is then relayed to the district attorney's office.

With Xyalzine appearing, he urged those who see a person down to not wait to call 911 because that drug is not going to be reversed with the use of Narcan.

Meanwhile, Marino said over the past several months he has been calling people to get out to vote and promised to visit as many of the polls as he could get to.

For any Democrats, Marino said ahead to put his name in and fill in the dot because the party had nobody running for the district attorney position.

Just as he did in the early 1990s with the special team known as DART, which targeted the crack cocaine dealers and put many in prison for a long period of time, Marino said as district attorney he planned to enact a similar strategy with fentanyl and make that a top priority.

The purpose is to investigate and go as in depth as possible under the law to find out who sold the drugs and to go after the dealer(s).

Marino cited a recent overdose involving a pre-teenager as an example of how the dealers do not care who or what age of individual they sell the "poison" to.

"If I can get to the point where we can arrest someone who gave that kid the drug, they are going to get charged with first-degree homicide," Marino said.

"You are going to go to jail, at least, for the rest of your life," he said. "Possibly, depending on the situation, the age and if the person who is involved, it's a potential death penalty."

To combat the drug epidemic, Marino said he would deploy a team of six or seven specially-devoted agents out in the street. It is not going to be 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Monday through Friday, he said.

"It's going to be nights, weekends and holidays," he said.

Additionally, Marino said he has been in discussion with former Judge Marc Lovecchio regarding mental health-related issues. Getting these individuals the help they need without continuing to put these individuals into prison and jail because the institutions do not want that, he said.

Just as the county has drug court and DUI court, Marino wants to begin a mental health issue court working with UPMC and Geisinger Medical Center to assist with the professional behavioral specialists, psychiatrists, psychologists and other experts in the mental health field.

"I know I am going to get resistance from the Left, but it is better than going to jail because we are looking for treatment for them," Marino said.

Marino also wanted to focus on juvenile crime prevention and juvenile mentoring programs such as Big Brothers and Big Sisters.

Marino said he would bring in a known retired appellate court judge to provide continuing education to the DA staff.

"We will shoot for once a month where we set aside an hour or two and it may also be done over video, and the lawyers will sit and receive a continuing legal education," he said. "Let's know the law, how to interpret it, how to present evidentiary motions and how to question an expert and know how to object and respond to some objections."

"I was a foster parent, and I'm a Big Brother," Marino said. "I'm very dedicated to juvenile court. We have a good juvenile system but we need to get more people and more programs available, to get into schools. I used to go into schools and read to the students," he said.

"Lycoming County launched my career, unbeknownst to me," Marino said.

Retired for a week and four days, Marino told his wife he "could not stand it."

"I want to come back full circle and thank the community for launching my career," he said.

For Marino, district attorney was among his favorite jobs. More so than Congress and U.S. attorney, he said.

"I listen to what my dad told me: 'Hire people who are smarter than [you],'" he said. "I've done that throughout my career."

"My staff throughout my career have made me look good."

Starting at /week.