Pottstown teen admits plot; avoids jail

A Pottstown teenager admitted after his case was transferred from adult to juvenile court yesterday that he planned to go on a shooting rampage at his high school.

Richard Yanis, 15, a pale figure in jeans, hoodie and sneakers, made the admission as part of an agreement that will allow him to receive treatment in a long-term residential facility instead of a prison term.

Both sides expressed satisfaction with the outcome.

"It was clear to us that what this young man needed was not going to happen in the state prison system," Montgomery County District Attorney Risa Vetri Ferman said at an afternoon news conference.

"His parents are glad he's in the juvenile system," said Yanis' attorney, public defender Stephen G. Heckman. "They didn't want him to spend one millisecond in state prison. He would be scarred for life."

Yanis is accused of hatching a plot to kill "everyone he did not like" and then himself at Pottstown High School with guns and ammunition he had stolen Nov. 10 from his father's gun collection.

At his arraignment yesterday morning in Pottstown before District Court Judge Thomas A. Palladino, Yanis approved the deal to drop all but the charge of first-degree attempted murder against him and waive a preliminary hearing so his case could be transferred from Common Pleas Court to Juvenile Court.

As part of the agreement, which Yanis signed, he conceded that "he is in need of rehabilitation, supervision and intensive treatment."

During a noontime hearing in Juvenile Court at the Montgomery County Youth Center in Audubon, Yanis was ordered held at the center pending sentencing within 25 days. He will receive treatment and psychological and psychiatric evaluations, court papers said.

Whether Yanis is sentenced as an adult or juvenile makes a critical difference: as an adult, he would face a maximum of 10 to 20 years in state prison; as a juvenile, he can be detained in a residential treatment center only until his 21st birthday.

Ferman said she initially charged Yanis as an adult because there was no provision for bringing a charge of criminal attempted murder under the juvenile crimes code.

The planned shooting spree was foiled by school officials and Pottstown police, who took Yanis into custody on Dec. 4 after a friend of his who was keeping the guns steered police to the Manatawny Creek in River Front Park in Pottstown. The friend and his stepmother had dumped the weapons in the water, according to police.

The stepmother, Julie Ann Macedo, 51, of the 100 block of Micklitz Drive, Pottstown, was formally accused yesterday of tampering with evidence, endangering others, and making false reports to police.

Macedo knew where the guns were but kept that secret from detectives, Ferman alleged. She also berated officers for questioning her son when she knew he was involved in the crime and altered her datebook to give him an alibi, Ferman said.

The ammunition and one of the guns that the Macedos dumped could plainly be seen from shore, creating a public threat, she said.

"I can only imagine at the horror we could have witnessed if a child had found the guns," Ferman said.

The charges were lodged at District Court in Pottstown. Macedo is expected to surrender for an 8:30 a.m. arraignment today before Palladino.

Yanis has been under treatment for depression since Dec. 4 at Brook Glen Behavioral Health in Fort Washington.

In court, Yanis responded to questions from Juvenile Court Judge S. Gerald Corso about his time there.

"It was good," Yanis said.