Former Police Chief Who Infiltrated Second Amendment Groups Acquitted of Wrongdoing

Former Gilberton police chief is just the sort of guy kids would have derisively refer to as a “snitch” —  a turncoat who fakes being friends, but who actually turns out to be the guy running to the authorities to get people in trouble.  After completing his work infiltrating pro-Second Amendment and Patriot groups, he allegedly moved on to bullying both men and women:

…this bad apple has threatened a counsel member and a woman with profanity and his gun, while she was driving home from a store.

And

His other offense was directed at a woman Shannon Heiber.

Heiber reported she pulled over to let the vehicle pass but the driver, later identified as Kessler, pulled alongside her, rolled down the passenger’s side window and began to scream at her and use obscene language, according to the criminal complaint. The woman recalled Kessler telling her “What are you doing? You’re lucky my kids are in here or you know what would happen,” according to the complaint.

Unfortunately, this turncoat has gone unpunished for his alleged offenses.

For the second time in three days, former Gilberton police chief and North Schuylkill school board member Mark Kessler walked out of Schuylkill County Courthouse a free man on Wednesday after a jury acquitted him of harassing a borough councilman in August 2015 in a Frackville store.

Kessler, 44, of Frackville, did not react as the jury of seven women and five men found him not guilty of harassment after deliberating less than 30 minutes to end the one-day trial over which Judge Jacqueline L. Russell presided.

This man has lived a charmed life, it would seem.

Another jury on Monday had found Kessler not guilty of terroristic threats and harassment in connection with an alleged road rage incident on Aug. 22, 2015, on Route 61 between Saint Clair and Frackville. Russell, who also presided over that trial, found him not guilty of disorderly conduct.

Former police chief Kessler sounds like just the sort of guy one would never want in a position of authority.

Kessler became enmeshed in controversy in mid-July 2013 when he posted two homemade videos to YouTube of him firing automatic weapons and using profanity. Gilberton suspended Kessler, saying the weapons were borough property and the chief did not have the right to use them in the videos.

In February 2014, Kessler retired and the borough abolished its police department.

Kessler did not run for re-election in 2015 to the school board.

Well, if there is a happy ending to this, it looks like Mr. Kessler no longer holds any position of public trust — and while escaped conviction, at least he’s not getting paid anymore to betray the public.

Source:  The Morning Call