{"id":277450,"date":"2026-09-02T17:02:12","date_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:02:12","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/277450\/"},"modified":"2026-09-02T17:02:12","modified_gmt":"2026-09-02T17:02:12","slug":"pittsburgh-area-native-answers-questions-about-alleged-penn-state-cocaine-ring-during-court-hearing-wpxi","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/277450\/","title":{"rendered":"Pittsburgh-area native answers questions about alleged Penn State cocaine ring during court hearing \u2013 WPXI"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">A Pittsburgh-area native accused of being a co-ringleader of a cocaine trafficking organization within two Penn State fraternities was back in court Wednesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Charges were announced against <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-man-accused-leading-cocaine-trafficking-ring-involving-2-penn-state-fraternities\/BG5BMEZZMJCOJO74TH7B6WTRJI\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/news\/local\/pittsburgh-man-accused-leading-cocaine-trafficking-ring-involving-2-penn-state-fraternities\/BG5BMEZZMJCOJO74TH7B6WTRJI\/\">Thomas Robinson, 23, and 13 others<\/a>, including his father Paul and co-ringleader Agostino Abbatiello, over two weeks ago. Agostino and both Robinsons appeared in court on Tuesday. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Abbatiello, a Westbury, New York native, and the other alleged ringleader, had been denied bail since he turned himself in. But during the Tuesday hearing was given $250,000 bail, with numerous conditions. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">During Thomas\u2019 hearing, prosecutors asked him about when he started using, buying and eventually selling cocaine.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Paul is accused of helping conceal evidence by providing a safe where drugs and cash were hidden. At his hearing, prosecutors brought one of Thomas\u2019 friends to the stand and showed text messages to highlight evidence regarding the safe &#8212; which was reportedly hidden in the woods after Thomas\u2019 arrest. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Channel 11\u2019s Addison Albert was in court today and will have the latest update on what happened during all the proceedings, tonight starting at 4 p.m. <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Download the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/mobile-apps\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">FREE WPXI News app<\/a> for breaking news alerts.<\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph\">Follow Channel 11 News on <a href=\"https:\/\/www.facebook.com\/wpxi\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Facebook<\/a> and <a href=\"https:\/\/twitter.com\/WPXI\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Twitter<\/a>. | <a href=\"https:\/\/www.wpxi.com\/video\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Watch WPXI NOW<\/a><\/p>\n<p>TOP STORIES FROM CHANNEL 11 NEWS <\/p>\n<p class=\"default__StyledText-sc-tl066j-0 gJuxXh body-paragraph body-copyright\">\u00a92026 Cox Media Group<\/p>\n<p><script async src=\"https:\/\/platform.twitter.com\/widgets.js\" charset=\"utf-8\"><\/script><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"A Pittsburgh-area native accused of being a co-ringleader of a cocaine trafficking organization within two Penn State fraternities&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":277451,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[9],"tags":[24358,9517,21028,116243,2465,38947,7899,10927,4742,116244,139,859,116245,5962,54011,73,75,74,13263,85,116242,420,860],"class_list":["post-277450","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-pittsburgh","tag-addison_albert","tag-albert","tag-aldi","tag-center_county","tag-channel_11_news","tag-channel_even","tag-christine","tag-churchill","tag-courthouse","tag-delta_upsilon","tag-news","tag-ott_news","tag-paul_robinson","tag-penn","tag-penn_state","tag-pittsburgh","tag-pittsburgh-headlines","tag-pittsburgh-news","tag-robinson","tag-state","tag-thomas_robinson","tag-video","tag-wpxi-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277450","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=277450"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/277450\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/277451"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=277450"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=277450"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=277450"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}