City of Tonawanda, NY — The harassment and stalking trial for School Board Trustee Elizabeth Olka won’t take place in the City of Tonawanda.
The charges against Olka stem from complaints that she used e-mail, Facebook and MySpace accounts to harass the daughter of School Board Vice President Jim Weber. During Olka’s first court appearance Tuesday morning, Judge Mark Saltarelli said his former professional relationship with the Weber family prevented him from hearing the case.
“Because I have represented the Webers in the past and done legal work for them, I am recusing myself and Judge (Joseph) Cassata,” Saltarelli said.
The case will be sent to Buffalo for reassignment. Trials are usually sent to the nearest court in the same county, in this case the Town of Tonawanda or Grand Island.
The school board has refused to comment on Olka’s situation, but a prepared statement indicated that the district is conducting its own investigation into other allegations against the embattled school board member. While there is no definite timeline for completing that investigation, the district’s attorney Chris Trapp said he hopes to have it complete as soon as possible to eliminate the distraction from district business.
Olka has also requested an FBI investigation into whether her online e-mail account was hacked after she said she discovered several days’ worth of incoming and outgoing e-mails had disappeared from her account on the free Internet e-mail provider Hotmail. City of Tonawanda police Lt. Tim Toth confirmed Tuesday that an FBI agent has been assigned to the investigation, but had no more details on its progress.
Olka cited the missing e-mails as her reason for missing the last scheduled school board meeting. The next scheduled board meeting is on March 23.
Local News
Related Photos
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COURT date: Tonawanda school board member Elizabeth Olka enters city court Tuesday morning to answer harassment and stalking charges. Doug Benz/News
March 17, 2010
Olka case moved out of city
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