The court proceedings may be unusual as the plaintiff, the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania, was set to be represented by the Somerset County district attorney’s office, which Mr. Thomas led.
Mr. Tutera said on Friday that all of the county’s magistrate judges would recuse themselves because of their previous work with Mr. Thomas’s office, and that the state might appoint a judge. Mr. Thomas had a preliminary hearing scheduled for Sept. 29, but Mr. Tutera said it would very likely be postponed.
Mr. Tutera said the woman drank beer and smoked marijuana with Mr. Thomas in her home, adding, “I think that there’s more to this story than meets the eye.” Mr. Thomas was released from jail on Thursday morning after posting $5,000 bail, Mr. Tutera said.
In October 2020, Mr. Thomas was cited in Cambria County, which is north of Somerset County, for disorderly conduct and harassment, WJAC-TV reported.
He used obscene language at a pizza restaurant and later threatened to “engage in a physical altercation” at a gymnastics gym, the television station reported. The status of those citations was not immediately available on Friday.
“Just because I am an elected official, I’m not supposed to get upset that my 5-year-old daughter’s birthday party gets screwed up,” he told the station in response to the citations. “That’s ridiculous.”
This is the second time this year that a Pennsylvania district attorney has been accused of sexual assault. In February, Chad M. Salsman, who was the district attorney in Bradford County, was accused of sexually assaulting clients from his private practice before he was elected district attorney in 2019. He pleaded guilty to some of the charges and resigned in May of this year, and was sentenced in July to 18 months to five years in prison.
Maria Cramer contributed reporting.
