Former Greene County District Attorney David Russo has been convicted of misdemeanor official oppression after a judge found he used a search warrant with no legitimate basis to strip emergency Stop the Bleed kits off county ambulances and out of 911 offices. The kits, intended to help first responders control severe bleeding during mass-casualty events, ended up locked inside the district attorney's own office instead of where paramedics could reach them.
Fayette County Senior Court Judge John Wagner delivered the verdict following a three-day, non-jury trial, according to Observer-Reporter. Investigators working the case seized 14 kits from county 911 offices and four more that had been equipped on ambulances, the outlet reports, before they were eventually returned to the 911 center. The kits had been purchased by the county through grants, and a state task force had specifically earmarked them for trained medics, per the same account.
Russo served as Greene County's district attorney from 2020 to 2023, and PennLive reports he was convicted Friday after the three-day trial. Pennsylvania Attorney General Dave Sunday said Russo ordered a detective in his office to obtain a search warrant without probable cause in order to seize the kits, which were then locked away inside the DA's office, PennLive reported. Prosecutors said Russo used the power of his office to force the kits' removal from the ambulances in the first place.
Detective Cleared, DA Found Guilty on One Count
Wagner acquitted Russo of five other charges, including charges concerning former Commissioner Michael Belding and Solicitor Robert Eugene Grimm, according to the Observer-Reporter's reporting on the verdict. His then-chief detective, Zachary Sams, fared better: the 42-year-old McDonald resident was found not guilty on all six counts he faced, the outlet notes. Sentencing for Russo has been postponed to Dec. 10, 2026, to allow a victim in the case to deliver an impact statement, per the same report.
The kits at the center of the case were never meant to sit in a prosecutor's office. As WTAJ notes, the kits are meant for first responders to use during mass casualty events — the kind of scenario where minutes matter and bleeding-control tools stashed in a locked office do nothing for crews in the field.
Charges Traced to a Statewide Grand Jury Investigation
Russo and Sams were both arrested and charged in 2024, according to PennLive's reporting, after being charged by a statewide investigating grand jury, as CBS News Pittsburgh reported at the time. That outlet reported that prosecutors alleged the two men used the powers of their office to go after political enemies. Russo had already lost his bid for a second term, falling to Brianna Vanata in the 2023 Republican primary for district attorney, per CBS News Pittsburgh's account.
The kit seizure wasn't the only allegation to follow Russo out of office. Gregory Leathers and Robert “Jeff” Rhodes filed a federal malicious-prosecution lawsuit against Russo and Sams, according to Observer-Reporter's 2024 report. That lawsuit followed criminal charges filed in 2022 against Leathers, Rhodes and Richard Policz, which were dismissed after Senior Judge Katherine Emery found no prima facie evidence to proceed, the outlet reported. The Herald-Standard reported that the lawsuit accuses Russo and Sams of violating the plaintiffs' civil rights, along with false arrest and malicious prosecution, with Leathers and Rhodes seeking more than $1 million in punitive damages.
What Official Oppression Means Under Pennsylvania Law
Pennsylvania's official-oppression statute makes it a second-degree misdemeanor for someone acting in an official capacity to knowingly subject another person to arrest, detention, search, seizure, mistreatment or dispossession, according to the Pennsylvania General Assembly's own text of the law. That's the single count on which Wagner found Russo guilty, even as the judge cleared him of the other five charges he faced in the same case.
Russo remains free on bail while he awaits his December sentencing date. The case leaves unresolved questions about how a sitting prosecutor was able to direct the seizure of life-saving medical equipment from working ambulances in the first place, and what, if anything, Russo will say in his own defense before Wagner hands down a sentence.
