NEWS / PA County Coroner alleges that he was pressured to file false death certificate by District Attorney

Tim Warco, the Coroner for Washington County, Pennsylvania, has reportedly produced an affidavit stating that he had been pressured to file a false death certificate by Washington County District Attorney Jason Walsh. The affidavit reportedly states that Walsh did so in order to win re-election by accusing the father of the deceased—a 2-month-old boy named Sawyer—of homicide.

“He says I need this to be a homicide, I need to win an election and has coroner Warco file a false death certificate listing a different cause and manner of death,” Frances Harvey, a representative of the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, was quoted by CBS News as stating.

District Attorney Walsh vehemently denied the allegations.

“That's insane," Walsh inveighed. "Coroner Warco's allegations are simply ludicrous...For him to allege that, I question his mental fitness and his fitness for office.”

Three years ago, 2-month old Sawyer Clarke was found unresponsive at his father’s home in Peters Township. He was taken to a hospital in Pittsburgh, where he passed away. Allegheny County Medical Examiner Karl Williams conducted an autopsy but could not determine the cause of death.

The boy’s father, Jordan Clarke was arrested and has been awaiting trial in jail for the past 2 years. Since Clarke could potentially face the death penalty, the Atlantic Center for Capital Representation, a Philadelphia-based non-profit that supports death penalty defendants, filed a special petition with the Pennsylvania Supreme Court to throw out the case, arguing that the boy’s father is being prosecuted for political reasons.

It was this non-profit that obtained the aforementioned affidavit from County Coroner Warco claiming to have been prodded to falsify the cause of death in the vital record.

At the same time, Jordan Clarke’s attorney Bill Difenderfer stated that he will be filing his own petition to have the case again his client thrown out on the basis of the death certificate in question having been reportedly falsified.

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