At the outset of this tutorial, regarding the Case of the man formerly known as Father Anthony Cipolla, the block of information below needed to be posted. The need of cutting to the chase and posting this specific information is due to decades of false & defamatory newspaper reporting against Cipolla.
The defamatory reporting is mostly due to the newspaper which recently had such a low number of subscribers that it couldn't economically survive the effects of a recent strike and a recent US Supreme Court decision.
Concerning this defamatory newspaper, it was scheduled for closure, on May 3rd, 2026. In the past 20 years of operation, it reportedly lost $350 million in operating costs.
So, take note of the information below and absorb it into your memory bank.
The OHIO LIE of none other than Diane You-Know-Whom
For the record, as was previously mentioned in another post, the most recent defamation against Cipolla was the claim that people in Ohio were coming out of the proverbial woodwork, accusing him of molestation and filing lawsuits against him ... four and five years AFTER his death, in 2020, 2021 or 2022.
Well, in the entire history of Ohio, from the first day when the first white man walked on its terrain, all the way to August 31, 2026, not a single person in Ohio or originally from Ohio ever accused Anthony Cipolla of molestation. This was yet another Diane Thompson LIE.
The presentation of that case was one sick joke. Those falsehoods are addressed in sufficient detail, at the Wuerl-of-Hurt site. Go see for yourself, line-item by line-item ... in the August & September 2026 archives.
The 1990s, when cover-up artist, Wuerl, artificially became a star
The 1990s newspaper narration of Diane Thompson being coerced into signing a 1978 sheet of paper in Bob Colville's office that was needed to "drop the charges" against Anthony Cipolla ... which were never filed in the first place ... shows how much of a liar she was and how much of a bunch of liars were the editors of the Pittsburgh Post Gazette.
This also showed how much of a team of liars Wuerl & his attorneys were, in not correcting the falsehoods being reported as fact. After all, this is the lying newspaper whose people spent over a decade very falsely calling the blatantly manipulative and even vengeful Donald Wuerl the Bishop of Zero Tolerance ... as well as the Model of Zero Tolerance.
And of course, Wuerl displayed much tolerance toward Wolk, Zula, Pucci, Zirwas, Hoehl, Burchianti, Huff, and other priests of a criminal nature.
None the less, this is also the newspaper whose subscriber numbers were so low ... in the newspaper's unpopularity ... that management decided to close down all operations of it, by May of 2026. Then, a non-profit organization purchased it, designating it to release publications two days a week, on Thursdays and Saturdays.
The Bob Colville Coercion Tale proved that the Thompson Clan and the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette editors were clueless as to basic procedural law in the United States
In review, for those of you who are exceptionally stubborn, exceptionally bigoted, and/or exceptionally brainwashed by either the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette or writer Randy Engel or any Wuerl-influenced entity:
The entire narration of the August 1978 Bob Colville Coercion Tale was was a harrowing one, where Diane Thompson claims that she was brought into Bob Colville's office and was then illegally detained there ... until she signed a sheet of paper that was needed "to drop the charges" filed against Anthony Cipolla.
Yet, as of August 28th, 1978, Cipolla had neither been put in handcuffs nor put behind county jail bars, simply because no charges were filed against him. The entire "filing of charges" tale was a deliberate lie. Meanwhile, the "dropping the charges" tale was a much bigger lie.
In as much, here is a re-Reality Check for you people out there who never studied law and who are still in denial that Randy Engel, Renew America, and others LIED about the 1978 Cipolla Case ... in your belief that Colville forced Diane Thompson to "drop the charges" ... which were never filed, in the first place:
Very simply, no civilian anywhere in the United States has the power to "drop the charges" in any criminal case. This included the Diane Thompson of 1978, especially concerning an Anthony Cipolla who was NOT charged for any crime in the same year of 1978.
This is because the power to drop criminal charges is reserved solely to the sovereign-governing-authority which is referred to as "the State." This includes the federal governing authority in federal jurisdiction cases, being that the federal government is also regarded as "the State." After all, the United States has an administrative authority called the Secretary of STATE.
Every criminal case in America begins with "The State of Such-and-Such vs defendant-of-the-case." Even federal criminal cases begin with "the United States vs defendant-of-the-case."
Therefore, only the court officers of the prosecuting State or the United States have the power to dismiss charges that have already been filed in the name of a prosecuting State or in the name of the United States.
And of course, this means "dismiss the charges," "withdraw the charges," "drop the charges," and "Nolle Prosequi." Each phrase means the same thing.
Doubly important is the fact that, in the 35-day-long Cipolla Case of 1978, there were NO CHARGES to be dismissed in the first place, being that no charges were ever filed.
If Diane Thompson did sign something under duress in Bob Colville's office on August 28th, 1978, it was pointless, because Bob Colville would have had nowhere to have taken that sheet of paper. It would have been a very useless sheet of paper," especially in light of the fact that Cipolla was NOT arrested in 1978, in the first place.
Moreover, any other procedural matter concerning Anthony Cipolla would have occurred at the CLERK OF COURTS OFFICE, and not in the office of DA Bob Colville.
So, what did she do on August 28th ... 1978?
Well, ladies & gentlemen, the only procedural thing that Diane Thompson could have done on Monday, August 28th, 1978 was "withdraw her private criminal complaint."
Now, a private criminal complaint is a petition to the "court of jurisdiction" to file charges. It is NOT the act of filing charges.
Then, there is the matter of withdrawing a private criminal complaint. Firstly, if the DA acts upon the private criminal complaint and does file charges, then the complainant cannot file a withdrawal. A complainant can only withdraw her criminal complaint IF neither the DA nor a presiding judge filed charges against the accused.
This is because, as soon as criminal charges are filed anywhere in the United States, the case is put solely in the hands of the prosecutor and the judge.
No civilian anywhere on Earth can "drop the charges" against any defendant anywhere in United States jurisdiction, in criminal law. NOT even Diane Thompson could have done this in Bob Colville's office, in 1978.
Procedural Review
As a quick lesson, if the DA's office has not yet acted on the private criminal complaint, and if the judge did not yet "issue process" and have the accused person arrested, then a private citizen can withdraw his/her complaint. IN order to do so, the COMPLAINANT had to ...
... appear AT THE CLERK OF COURTS OFFICE in person, to get the paperwork done, and NOT in any county District Attorney's office. This included Bob Colville's office, in 1978.
Therefore, if you go about, claiming that Diane Thompson made an honest mistake in her claim of signing a paper that dropping Cipolla charges, and meant to say that she signed a withdrawal of her private criminal complaint against Cipolla in Bob Colville's office, the answer is that:
It is a lie to state this, because she needed to be AT THE CLERK OF COURTS OFFICE, doing the paperwork and signing her name. Bob Colville is part of the executive branch of government. Filing and withdrawing criminal complaints is done with the judicial branch only.
Furthermore, Diane Thompson gave Randy Engel a narration of post-arrest activities which never occurred, such as the post-arrest prelim hearing scheduled for "Police Station #9" and two detectives with fictional names driving her to yet another prelim hearing, telling her that they hoped that she would not succumb to diocesan pressure and "drop the charges," as if a civilian dropping charges is part of daily American judicial process.
As a reminder for the stubborn, there is a decisive difference between a citizen filing a private criminal complaint and a government authority filing criminal charges. A private citizen's complaint is NOT the filing of charges It's a request for the government to file charges.
Thus, if charges have not yet been filed, then a private citizen may withdraw his/her private citizen's complaint. If charges have already been filed, then the private citizen CANNOT withdraw his/her private citizen's complaint. If he/she could do so, it would be pointless. The charges would still stand."
In review, being that Americans can be really stupid when it comes to understanding legal procedure, when you file a private criminal complaint, you are asking the court to file the charges for you. The court you are asking is the one who has jurisdiction over your case.
It is never a matter of you filing charges. Thus, when you file a private criminal complaint, you are not filing charges. When you file such a complaint, charges are only "pending" and charges in your personal case may never get filed, if the Burden of Proof standard is NOT satisfied.
In a Probable Cause Hearing the Burden of Proof Standard is lower than the standard for a "full hearing based on the merits." None the less, one requirement for a judge to approve the issuing of an indictment is that the complainant has to "show reasonable grounds that a violation has probably occurred."
Now, according to the July 25th, 1978, Offense/Incident Report signed by Officer Mark Ninehouser, there was no evidence that Tucker Thompson, aka Thomas Thompson, was violated. After all, the Allegheny General Hospital finding of Tucker's condition was classified as "GOOD."
No mention of bruises, blood stains, cut marks, scratch marks, red marks, semen, or anything similar.
And of course, being that the average amount of time it took for DNA test results to be produced in 1978 was 52 days, there wasn't the time for any DNA test result to be submitted into evidence, even if there were semen found on Tucker. This is because the 1978 Cipolla Case lasted for only 35 days.
The O/I Report was NOT the conclusion of the police officer. It was literally quotes of what the Thompson Clan alleged. There was no cross-examination done at that time. Therefore, that which was printed by the officer on the O/I Report was NOT the officer agreeing with Diane Thompson and the young "Thomas Thompson." It was simply Officer Ninehouser stating the accusations of the Thompson household against Cipolla.
The fact that the July 25th medical exam report marked Tucker's medical condition was GOOD, when he was supposed to have been recently molested a few hours prior, would be the reason why no police officer submitted a Police Affidavit to any magistrate and why the Allegheny County DA declined to indict Cipolla.
Very simply, there was no evidence against Cipolla, according to the O/I Report. There were only unproven accusations.
The rapid time between the "alleged" molestation and the calling of police made the entire accusation look like a premeditated scheme
Another important feature of the July 25th, 1978, O/I Report is that, according to Diane Thompson and "Thomas 'Tucker' Thompson," Cipolla molested Tucker between 3:10 PM and 4:30 PM.
Well, Diane Thompson literally called the police at 5:15 PM. This means that she was supposedly able to "pry out of Tucker" deeply troubling concealed information within 45 minutes to 2 hours after Tucker was molested ... and within one hour after Tucker got home.
The point here is that Diane Thompson claimed that she had to extract a secret from Tucker. Well, in past cases throughout America, it would not be for weeks or months or even years that a molestation victim would finally reveal the incidents of his molestation to an adult. Yet, Diane Thompson claimed to have "finally" extracted deeply hidden information within one to two hours after a molestation event.
Such a thing would have broken some kind of speed record, indeed. But, such a rapid time span makes the entire thing look like a premeditated con game, especially shortly after Diane Thompson was denied her request to have Cipolla's parish (or the St Vincent de Paul society, through the parish) pay her monthly apartment rent.
As the past 35 years have illustrated, accusing a priest of molestation can be a very lucrative undertaking in the United States, especially for people who need apartment rent money.
The general rule of the private citizen's criminal complaint
When it comes a private citizen's criminal complaint, it is never a matter of you pressing charges. If any person in America could file criminal charges, then there would be total chaos in the court system. Con artists and vengeful people would be filing charges to the point of overloading the legal system and causing it to be unable to operate.
When neither judge nor prosecutor approved of a private citizen's criminal complaint
If neither a DA nor a judge approved the private criminal complaint, it used to be that the "complainant" was left to do the prosecuting, himself/herself. But, the civilian did the prosecuting under the watchful eye of an assistant DA. Technically, such a thing is "an oversight prosecution," with the assistant DA doing the overseeing.
And of course, it has always been a rarity for a private citizen to prosecute a case in America. Even at that, during such rare cases the civilian prosecutor still had no power to "drop the charges" during the transpiration of the case. Only the judge had that power.
Concerning judges and/or DA's accepting a private citizen's criminal complaint and then filing charges against the accused, during 1978, about 10% of the criminal cases in the USA were started by a private criminal complaint ... where the DA took-over and prosecuted the whole case without the help of the private citizen complainant.
Today, if a private citizen is denied his/her request to have criminal charges filed against the accused, then that private citizen can file in United States District Court, asking for an injunction ordering the DA to file criminal charges.
Moreover, if a police officer submits a POLICE AFFIDAVIT, then the presiding judge can declare due cause, pursuant solely to the police affidavit, and indict the accused person(s). In that case, no private citizen's complaint is needed.
Here is the pertinent question, concerning the 1978 Cipolla Case:
Q: Which actual persons caused criminal charges to be filed against Anthony Cipolla, according to Diane Thompson's fictional tale?
ANS: According to Diane Thompson and certain writers, the filing of charges against Cipolla in 1978 ... which were never filed in the first place ... was done by "Detectives" Nehouser and Fogle.
In reality, the detectives were the late Warren Broz who died in 2020 or so, and the Detective Leo Marchetti who died in 2012. They did NOT arrest Cipolla. In fact, Broz ended up becoming a desk sergeant for a long period of time, after having been a detective.
So, process this contradiction in your mind:
According to Diane Thompson, two guys named Nehouser and Fogle arrested Cipolla, filing criminal charges against him, in late July 1978. Then, Diane Thompson magically had the power to drop the charges, by signing a sheet of paper in Bob Colville's office, in late August of 1978.
If she did not do the filing of charges, then how is it that she got the power to dismiss the charges? The answer is that her whole Colville Signing Story is a wall-to-wall lie. Cipolla was never charged, in the first place. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette was either too dishonest or too incompetent to fact-check this damning story which defamed Colville as much as it defamed Cipolla.
All in all, Diane Thompson LIED. The Pittsburgh Post-Gazette repeated her LIE. And Randy Engel LIED, while acting as if to be a law professor, when she was nothing more than a babbling buffoon.
Of course, Engel spent a third of her defamatory 2016 article mentioning how the detectives ... which were given the wrong names by Engel ... were telling Thompson how they hoped that she would stand strong and NOT succumb to being pressured into dropping charges by the Diocese of Pittsburgh and Cipolla's lawyer.
Well, Diane Thompson had zero authority to drop any criminal charges anywhere in the USA at any time, in 1978. Randy Engel wrote a series of LIES, in 2016.
Now, as far as went Diane Thompson withdrawing her private criminal complaint ... or perhaps it was a matter of Judge Laffey not permitting it to have been filed in the first place ... it would only have been because she had not met the Burden of Proof Standard to prosecute Cipolla ... and because she had no idea how to prosecute a case herself ...
... and allegedly because she didn't want to get in trouble for allegedly filing a false police report and for allegedly lying to the police. After all, Allegheny General Hospital found zero evidence that any kind of crime had been committed upon "Thomas Thompson," on July 25th, 1978.
None the less, perceive what the Post-Gazette and Thompson ... in the Court of Public Opinion ... were accusing the 1978 DA's office of having done.
This shows that Diane Thompson & the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette personnel ... in the 1990s & in the 2010s ... were nothing but a bunch of liars thinking that Pittsburghers are stupid enough to believe anything stated by the Post-Gazette, as if it were the Infallible Voice of God.
Well, the Post-Gazette was only the Voice of Annoyance and it was been an Insult to the Intelligence of the Reasonable Pennsylvanian. It's grand DECLINE in subscribers in the 2010s & 2020s proves this to be so.
Plus, the Post Gazette management was not very kind to its employees. Due to low subscriber numbers, the Gazette could NOT afford to be kind to its employees.
It's no wonder why the Post Gazette underwent a decline in subscriber numbers so significant that its management planned to shut down operations by May of 2026. Then, a certain non-profit organization purchased it. Well, that non-profit organization purchased a severe liability. If you're going to do that, you might as well hire a reckless driver to be your personal chauffeur.
