{"id":1724,"date":"2025-10-15T13:58:15","date_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/1724\/"},"modified":"2025-10-15T13:58:15","modified_gmt":"2025-10-15T13:58:15","slug":"allentown-woman-admits-to-planting-noose-on-city-hall-desk-enters-ard","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/1724\/","title":{"rendered":"Allentown woman admits to planting noose on City Hall desk, enters ARD"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 An ex-city employee admitted in court Thursday that she put a noose on her own desk at City Hall in January, sparking <a class=\"Link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.lehighvalleynews.com\/allentown\/enough-is-enough-protesters-call-for-federal-investigation-into-noose-at-allentown-city-hall\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">calls for a federal hate-crime investigation<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p>LaTarsha Brown, 43, was charged with making a false report and tampering with evidence, both misdemeanors.<\/p>\n<p>She was accepted Thursday into the Lehigh County\u2019s Accelerated Rehabilitative Disposition program. <\/p>\n<p>    Under the program, Brown must remain in the pretrial diversionary program for two years, the maximum time a person can be in ARD. <\/p>\n<p>Release from Lehigh County District Attorney Gavin Holihan\u2019s office<\/p>\n<p>Under the program, Brown must remain in the pretrial diversionary program for two years, the maximum time a person can be in ARD, according to a release from District Attorney Gavin Holihan\u2019s office.<\/p>\n<p>Brown admitted to placing a small noose on her desk on the third floor of Allentown City Hall on Jan. 10, the release states.<\/p>\n<p>She reported the item to police the same day, setting off an investigation by Allentown police and FBI agents.<\/p>\n<p>Brown said she touched the noose after she didn\u2019t immediately recognize it. <\/p>\n<p>After obtaining her DNA through a search warrant.Authorities later determined Brown was the only person to touch the item <\/p>\n<p>She also on Thursday was ordered to pay almost $2,000 to cover those DNA tests, the release states.<\/p>\n<p>Brown in April waived her right to a preliminary hearing in magisterial district court and was released on unsecured bail of $1,000.<\/p>\n<p>She is an Allentown School Board member whose term ends this year; she did not seek re-election.<\/p>\n<p>Brown&#8217;s employment with Allentown\u2019s Department of Community and Economic Development ended in May. <\/p>\n<p>City officials \u201care prepared to act swiftly to hold any individuals accountable\u201d for the \u201chorrible and unacceptable incident,\u201d Allentown Mayor Matt Tuerk said in a statement seven months ago. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"ALLENTOWN, Pa. \u2014 An ex-city employee admitted in court Thursday that she put a noose on her own&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":1725,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[119,1683,1689,1690,1684,121,120,1685,1691,1692,1686,1687,1688],"class_list":["post-1724","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-city-hall","tag-allentown-city-hall-employee-charged","tag-allentown-city-hall-noose-investigation","tag-allentown-employee-charged","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-noose","tag-allentown-noose-investigation","tag-allentown-racism-investigation","tag-latarsha-brown","tag-latarsha-brown-sentenced","tag-noose-lehigh-county"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1724"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1724\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1725"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1724"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1724"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1724"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}