{"id":227349,"date":"2026-06-25T00:29:19","date_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:29:19","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227349\/"},"modified":"2026-06-25T00:29:19","modified_gmt":"2026-06-25T00:29:19","slug":"pa-supreme-court-votes-to-reinstate-controversial-dauphin-county-attorney","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/227349\/","title":{"rendered":"PA Supreme Court votes to reinstate &#8216;controversial&#8217; Dauphin County attorney"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reinstated the former chief public defender of Dauphin County, who had been suspended since 2021 after <a href=\"https:\/\/local21news.com\/news\/local\/charges-filed-against-chief-public-defender-for-dauphin-county\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">misappropriating taxpayer money<\/a> to support a political campaign.<\/p>\n<p>According to a court ruling, Bradley Winnick was charged in 2019 after offering double pay for each hour that employees handed out campaign literature promoting a candidate during the 2017 primary and general elections.<\/p>\n<p>RELATED | <a href=\"https:\/\/local21news.com\/news\/local\/charges-filed-against-chief-public-defender-for-dauphin-county\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">Charges filed against chief public defender for Dauphin County<\/a><\/p>\n<p>After reviewing Dauphin County records, investigators determined Winnick granted over $26K worth of comp time to his employees during the two elections.<\/p>\n<p>In August of that same year, Winnick was informed his actions were under investigation by the attorney general&#8217;s office. He told officials he knew it was the wrong thing to do but &#8220;did not stop and think.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>The Dauphin County Commissioners had the following to say after charges were filed against Warrick.<\/p>\n<p>The charges filed today against Mr. Winnick are very serious and disappointing. Effective immediately, he is suspended without pay pending the outcome of the investigation.<\/p>\n<p>After pleading guilty to the charges on March 5, 2020, Winnick notified the disciplinary counsel of his conviction and his desire to enter a temporary suspension of his license. <\/p>\n<p>While seeking reinstatement, Winnick told the court he acted arrogantly, and he waited years to apply for reinstatement because he &#8220;made a terrible mistake&#8221; and felt the situation deserved more introspection.<\/p>\n<p>Dauphin County District Attorney Francis Chardo testified that Winnick \u201chas a superb knowledge of the law and exhibits that.\u201d In the ruling, it was noted that Chardo had discussed the possibility of having Winnick work in his office if reinstated.<\/p>\n<p>Chardo thought it was &#8220;a great idea,&#8221; according to court documents.<\/p>\n<p>On June 23, his petition for reinstatement passed the Supreme Court.<\/p>\n<p>CBS 21 has reached out to Chardo and the Dauphin County Commissioners for their thoughts on Winnick&#8217;s reinstatement.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"DAUPHIN COUNTY, Pa. (WHP) \u2014 The Pennsylvania Supreme Court has reinstated the former chief public defender of Dauphin&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":227350,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[28,30,29],"class_list":["post-227349","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania","tag-pennsylvania-headlines","tag-pennsylvania-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227349","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=227349"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/227349\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/227350"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=227349"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=227349"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=227349"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}