Pennsylvania House, Big House, Then What?
(“Capitol Crimes,” Forensic Files)
Thomas W. Druce panicked and made a decision so ill-advised that it meant trading his job as a Pennsylvania legislator for a 42-cent-an-hour gig on the grounds crew of Laurel Highlands State Prison.
Last week’s post examined the roles racism and classism played in the privileged treatment and light sentence Druce received for the hit-and-run accident that left Kenneth Cains alone and dying next to a Harrisburg street on July 27, 1999.
Druce, who for four terms represented the 44th District in Central Bucks County — and enjoyed a $57,367 annual base salary, per diem expenses, and a government-paid car — managed to evade justice at first by hiding the evidence of the accident, then by having lawyers stall his prison check-in date until April 2004. (He had pleaded guilty in 2000.)
So what ever happened to him and others featured on “Capitol Crimes,” the Forensic Files episode about Druce’s crimes? Three epilogues:
• Thomas Druce was released in 2006. “It’s a tragedy all the way around,” Druce’s mentor, former Bucks County Commissioner Andrew Warren was quoted as saying in a Morning Call story by Pervaiz Shallwani. “And now it’s probably best everyone start anew.”
Druce actually had already begun something of a new chapter, even before he reported to jail in 2004, according to his LinkedIn profile. He launched PoliticsPA.com in 2001.
Although he’s no longer associated with the website, PoliticsPA.com still exists, under new ownership, as a “one-stop shop for political junkies in every part of the state” and has attracted ads from the likes of Uber and the University of Pennsylvania.
It’s not clear whether Druce ever owned the site in full or profited from it in any way.
The website wasn’t his first post-crime venture: He also founded a public-policy consulting business, Phoenix Strategy Group, before heading to his minimum-security digs.
Again, whether he derived net gains from the business (and who ran it) during his time behind razor wire is unclear.
A 2000 Philadelphia Inquirer story by Stephanie Doster and Amy Worden noted that Druce already had “a job lined up with Hershey public-relations firm Hallowell & Branstetter” after his release but that “he could have difficulty getting to work because his driver’s license had been suspended.” Druce’s LinkedIn profile makes no mention of that position.
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In another Philadelphia Inquirer story, published the day after Druce’s March 2006 release from prison, Worden described the disgraced politician as having “$15 in his checking account” and being “$100,000 in debt.”
His wife, Amy Schreiber-Druce, a former ballet teacher, had already filed for divorce and found a job working for a political caucus, according to the article.
The 2006 Philly Inquirer story also noted that the house in Chalfont, Pennsylvania, that the couple and their three sons had shared still belonged to the family at the time of his release. Hence, it’s unlikely Schreiber-Druce ended up moving into the boardinghouse room vacated by Kenneth Cains after her husband went to state prison.
According to Thomas Druce’s LinkedIn profile, he worked at Phoenix Strategy Group from 2001 to the present, which would — curiously — encompass his days in Laurel Highland.
His LinkedIn profile also says that, starting in 2013, he worked in business development for Grace Electronics, “a small-business manufacturing and engineering company supporting the defense and aerospace industry partnering with Lockheed Martin, Boeing and the United States Navy to the Phoenix Strategy Group.”
Aside from the information on the social-media networking website, very little record of Druce’s doings after his release can be found on the internet.
• Louis Cains, the brother of hit-and-run victim Kenneth Cains, died in 2013 at the age of 60. An obituary notes that, in addition to Kenneth, two other siblings preceded him in death.
He lived long enough to hear Thomas Druce apologize for failing to stop after hitting Kenneth, and see Druce hit with a $100,000 civil fine for his crimes.
Cains, a longtime employee at a garden and lawn equipment manufacturer, left a wife of 26 years, a daughter, and three surviving siblings.
• Ed Marsico, the District Attorney who prosecuted Druce, still serves in that capacity in Dauphin County, Pennsylvania, and is going strong a decade after his appearance on Forensic Files.
Recent headlines include Marsico’s investigation of a synthetic marijuana influx that caused widespread overdosing in the area.
In 2015, his office investigated police officer Lisa Mearkle, who shot a man lying face down on the ground after he fled a traffic stop in Harrisburg. A jury acquitted her on all charges related to David Kassick’s death.
Sadly, Marsico saw his own son, Connor, a 19-year-old football player at Millersville University, plead guilty to simple assault in connection with the robbery and beating of a 22-year-old man. Connor received 24 months of probation in 2015.
Adversity notwithstanding, Ed Marsico is Dauphin County’s longest-serving DA. In celebration, commissioners designated an Edward M. Marsico Jr. Day in 2014.
And he still has a great tan. — RR
Watch the Forensic Files episode on YouTube
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Like a short story by Raymond Carver, there is a complex and stained happy ending to it all. Thanks for another terrific article!
Thanks, Bruce! I love Raymond Carver’s Cathedral for its “fairy tales are stories that haven’t ended yet” theme. Thomas Druce was living a charmed life until he drank, drove, and fled.
Druce left the scene of the accident because he was drunk.
And all Cains’ life was worth is $100K? That’s beyond inhumane. Why are our Vietnam veterans who survived treated and compensated so poorly? And who ever heard of a felon on ankle monitoring being able to take it off and run the beaches of. Florida. Who knows what he was capable of there. They could have had him monitored by beach patrol at least.
How many other felons, regardless of race or status, have been afforded this luxury. I am truly continually ashamed by our criminal justice system. And being Scandinavian. I am white as they come.
Druce may still be living somewhat of a charmed life in that his punishment never fit the crime and….. he’s still alive; the same cannot be said of Cains. It looks like his prosecutor has made out like the proverbial bandit. Some justice system!
Can you help me find a little information about what the Phoenix Strategy Group does? I’m not having much luck with Google. Google cautions that the “site may be hacked” when I looked up Grace Electronics (which is now Grace Aerospace), and I understand it for thinking so because that website is very, very unpleasant to look at.
I get the same “site may be hacked” message with Grace Aerospace. There aren’t a lot of references to Phoenix Strategy Group out there in news articles. Its own site says, “Phoenix Strategy is an entrepreneurial investment company formed to acquire and operate a small to medium sized privately held business.”
No justice in this case. Just a little slap on the wrist for Druce. Hit and run, cover up, lying, evidence tampering, insurance fraud. Sheesh. Yet another political leader with no integrity. He gets to live his life freely now after the mild slap. What about the victim? Horrible prosecution!
Robin: I agree – he got away lightly. That’s American justice, which confers advantage on those with money and influence – usually white. John Spenkalink (exacutee): “Capital punishment means those without capital get the punishment.” Sadly true.
Druce made a terrible mistake and probably was not thinking clearly at the time, possibly believing the man he mowed down was dead on impact. Druce made a cowardly and selfish decision to escape justice, which may have been a DUI charge at the most. The black man lost his life but not much of one but still a life. Druce lost a promising career, his wife through divorce and living a life with his three children plus two years of jail time. Tragedy for all, I feel bad for the black Marine.
Sad also for the Cains family to know that the driver who hit their brother never called an ambulance.
Eh that family didn’t care about him until there was money to be made. Guy was basically homeless.
You can’t know that: he may have chosen or forced estrangement through lifestyle choices. The issue in any case is Druce, not his victim’s situation. Pauper or prince, Druce should have stopped, even if the accident was unavoidable. And if Druce was intoxicated, that makes it considerably worse (though that can only be speculation).
Any bias was in Druce’s favour, not his victim’s. Tell “It was a mistake” to the dead victims of drunk drivers and you’ll get a pretty dramatic emotional and legal response… Of course, we don’t know he was over the limit, but it’s the likely explanation for his behaviour. If not he’d have had nothing to fear. Instead he left a man who might have been saved by medical attention to die, if not dead on impact.
Whether leaving the scene in panic or because drunk, there is no defence in law. And if he WAS drunk, he got off very lightly indeed, otherwise he’d have had a considerable prison stretch. Vehicular homicide and vehicular manslaughter: lots of states have laws that are specific to driving-related unlawful killings. For example, in Florida a motorist can be convicted of “vehicular homicide” for causing the death of another while driving in a “reckless manner.” The vehicular homicide statute applies to all killings that result from driving in a reckless manner – not just those that involve intoxication. A Florida vehicular homicide conviction is a second-degree felony and carries up to 15 years in prison and a maximum $10,000 in fines. Florida law also provides a DUI enhancement that makes a DUI-related killing a second- or first-degree felony. So, for DUI-related killings, Florida prosecutors can choose whether to charge vehicular homicide, the DUI-death enhancement, or both.
He was either pretty lucky in not getting the aforementioned charge (because he fled the scene) or unlucky for getting caught at all. Either way, his victim’s dead and he appears to have a decent career regardless of the loss of a political one (which had no guarantees with it anyway). WHo’s biased?
It was a tragedy the young man was killed when he could have possibly been a contribution to society, not to mention absolutely everything was taken from him that fatal night. However, it was an accident. Druce paid a heavy price, as he should have. This rocked his world. He lost the life he had and had to find the strength to find a new life. He did have that opportunity to do that, and Cains didn’t. That is just awful for the Caines family, but it certainly was not a capital crime. Druce was required to pay a considerable amount of money to the Cains family for apparantly emotional loss. Cains did not financially support anyone. He also served time in prison, lost his family, filed bankruptcy, lost his home, and the life he knew. I don’t think that justice was skewed because of his position or the class of the victim. Police and DA worked very hard and spent quite a bit of funds and time to find out the circumstances of this young man’s murder and to pursue/prosecute the assailant. Kenneth Cain mattered. Our justice system worked.
You’re not quite right. Druce’s divorce was a personal matter quite possibly unrelated to his crime; and the house was, according to the article, owned by the family, so it’s unclear whether it was ‘lost,’ and if so, whether due to the divorce that could have happened in any case. Equally, who can say a political career was lost? It MAY have been – but he may have failed for other reasons.
Druce DID get away lightly, in the literal sense that in the likely event he’d been drinking, he’d have had a significantly harder punishment if DUI killing. He likely knew that and acted evasively. In this sense he might be construed as lucky the outcome wasn’t worse for him.
I don’t think most share your view that in ANY degree Druce suffered heavily. Rather, he likely got away with suffering rather more… As to the ‘lost’ political career, his conduct in this matter was manifestly without integrity and decency – proving that he was absolutely unsuited to that career (albeit that plenty of politicians are likely no better).
Finally, an accident that one caused through voluntary impairment through drink or drugs isn’t an accident in the loose sense you mean: it’s a form of manslaughter, which by definition isn’t an accident. No-one suggests it was deliberate – but that’s not the point. The Pennsylvania “Homicide by vehicle while driving under influence” law entails a second-degree felony with a potential sentence of up to 10 years and a mandatory minimum of three years. As Druce attempted to pervert the course of justice etc, his sentence could have been longer still.
Heavy price or fortunate?
Young man? Contribution ? Uh, do some research.
Two thoughts:
1. Who was it who sent the original note informing the cops about Druce? In a woman’s handwriting?
2. What ever happened to the capitol security guard who could have testified to Druce’s cover story? The one that retired right after the accident, when it became known that the one security camera that could confirm or refute the cover story was mysteriously off that night?
This guy got off easy but what lies ahead of his life will show up because Karma is a bitch? Lady is not blind. The bitch has no eyes?