A Scranton Human Relations Commission member arrested for assault and trespassing at a high school last week was facing a drunken driving charge as he was appointed to the commission in 2023, court and city records show.
Michael Villa, 29, had his 5-month-old son with him in his SUV when he was arrested for driving under the influence of alcohol by Wilkes-Barre police in June 2022.
He was also arrested for trespassing and fleeing police a month after his appointment to the commission.
A month after that arrest, police arrested him again for disorderly conduct in a downtown Scranton hotel on the same day he attended his first commission meeting, the records show.
The drunken driving arrest in Wilkes-Barre months before Villa’s appointment raised questions about how well Scranton Mayor Paige Cognetti’s administration vetted him and whether any city officials knew of his post-appointment run-ins with police.
Cognetti unavailable for interview
Repeated efforts to interview Cognetti were unsuccessful Wednesday and Thursday. In an email, city Solicitor Jessica Eskra said Cognetti was unavailable for an interview Thursday.
Eskra said Villa was vetted, but acknowledged the city only added criminal background checks to vetting in early 2024.
It was unclear why background checks weren’t done earlier and Eskra’s email did not elaborate.
Villa, unable to post $10,000 bail, is in the Lackawanna County Prison and could not be reached for comment.
Removing Villa
In response to the arrests last week, city officials now say the commission is taking steps to remove Villa from his seat.
In another email, Eskra said the mayor is grateful to city police who bravely responded “to the mental health episode and transport(ed)” Villa to a hospital “for a mental health evaluation and the care they need.”
Court papers show Villa was involuntarily committed to a Scranton hospital for treatment of mental health issues.
“Prior to the unacceptable events of last week,” the city was told in late August that Villa “had abandoned his position” on the commission by not participating in two years, Eskra wrote.
She said the commission’s bylaws allow the removal of someone who’s missed three straight meetings, and the commission has begun the removal process by notifying Villa of its intent.
“While we respect this process, the mayor is swiftly working to appoint a replacement,” Eskra wrote.
Beynon rips Cognetti
At a news conference Thursday, Republican mayor candidate Trish Beynon criticized Cognetti for neglecting to properly screen Villa before appointing him.
“If the city of Scranton, the mayor, and anyone in the city administration knew of that, he definitely should not have kept his job,” Beynon said. “That's not right for anybody ... He never should have been appointed. Did they vet him? It doesn't look like they properly vetted him. If they did, they would have found all that out.”
She suggested Cognetti was “protecting a criminal.”
“Why did it take so long to request a person to be removed from the board, especially that of a criminal?” Beynon said. “This lack of leadership on this very serious matter begins and ends with Mrs. Cognetti. Period.”
The commission schedules four meetings a year and says its mission is to promote people getting along and to “safeguard equal opportunity for all.” It also investigates complaints of “unlawful discrimination.” Its members are unpaid.
The drunken driving arrest
Wilkes-Barre police stopped Villa for drunken driving on June 12, 2022, after his ex-girlfriend called to report he drove away intoxicated from her Old River Road home with their 5-month-old baby boy, according to an arrest affidavit.
Police later pulled over his white Honda SUV near the Luzerne County Courthouse. Officers found him “sweating profusely and breathing heavy,” according to the affidavit.
“Villa became very upset with himself, saying that he didn’t want any problems,” and disclosed his son was in the back seat.
A police officer asked if he had been drinking.
“I went to a political party and had a beer,” he replied, according to the affidavit.
Villa again became upset, saying he’s a good father and complaining that his ex-girlfriend calling the police was “unfair.” He refused to take a breath test for alcohol and later refused a blood test but took a field sobriety test that he failed, according to the affidavit.
The appointment while charged
The charge remained pending in November 2022, as Cognetti nominated Villa to the commission. The City Council unanimously ratified the nomination on Nov. 29,2022. Council members Jessica Rothchild, Mark McAndrew, Kyle Donahue, Tom Schuster and Bill King voted yes, according to City Council meeting minutes. Villa was to serve until Feb. 23, 2026, filling the unexpired term of Teresa Osborne, the former state secretary of aging, who had resigned a commission seat.
At a City Council meeting Tuesday, McAndrew said vetting is up to the mayor, and the council only ratifies nominees.
More trouble after the DUI
Villa was sentenced on the drunken driving charge in February 2023 to six months probation and ordered to pay $1,499 in fines and court costs.
By then, he was in trouble again.
The month after his appointment and less than a week before Christmas 2022, Scranton police arrested Villa for trespassing and fleeing a police officer.
A South Scranton woman had reported Villa rang her home’s doorbell, entered her garage and tried to open the door of a car parked in her driveway, according to an arrest affidavit. For several minutes, he looked in a home window. He left after an hour.
Villa called the woman’s brother and said he came to the home to see his father, because “he had some stuff he needed to get off his chest,” according to the affidavit.
Walking in traffic
About two hours later, a city police officer spotted Villa walking in the middle of heavily traveled Pittston Avenue. Villa ignored a request to move to the sidewalk to avoid getting struck by a vehicle, according to an arrest affidavit.
The officer pulled over and detained Villa, who “pulled a small flashlight out of his jacket pocket and began to strobe the light in my face, blinding me,” and fled, the officer wrote.
Villa ran two blocks, turned around and tried to enter an occupied vehicle heading north. The officer caught up to Villa and fired a Taser three times to subdue him.
Police charged him with trespassing, fleeing an arresting officer, resisting arrest, obstructing the administration of law and walking illegally on a street.
His first commission meeting
Before either case was resolved, Villa got in trouble again.
On Jan. 23, 2023, Villa visited the Hilton Scranton & Conference Center, where he once worked.
Employees reported seeing Villa coming in and out of the hotel “all day.” Commission meeting minutes show he attended a meeting scheduled at 5:30 p.m. and was welcomed by the chairperson.
Two hours later, he was back at the hotel.
“Villa walked behind the front desk (where) only employees are allowed and started slamming items on the desk,” according to an arrest affidavit. Minutes later, he went behind a hotel bar and smashed a $12 bottle of wine, according to the affidavit.
A bartender ordered him to leave, but Villa refused. Another bartender warned that he would call the police.
“What are they going to do?” Villa replied, according to the affidavit. He then smashed a salt shaker and knocked items off furniture in the lobby, according to the affidavit.
Police charged him with criminal mischief and disorderly conduct. He pleaded guilty to disorderly conduct in April 2023 and was ordered to pay $634 in court costs and restitution, according to online court records.
In May 2023, he pleaded guilty to trespassing, fleeing the officer on Pittston Avenue and resisting arrest. A judge sentenced him in July 2023 to 18 months probation and to pay $3,787.75 in court costs.
The latest arrests
Last Friday, he had two more encounters with Scranton police.
A woman at River Street Manor, a Wilkes-Barre nursing home where Villa worked, called 911 to report that he had called her to complain that he was denied access to West Scranton High School.
A school secretary told police a man came in and asked to tour the school, but she denied him permission, and he left. A video recording confirmed it was Villa.
The same secretary and a school custodian said Villa visited the school earlier this month, too, according to the affidavit.
The Scranton School District briefly locked down all its schools because of “a suspicious individual” at one school on Friday, according to a post on its Facebook page.
Later the same morning, city police served Villa with a warrant at a North Irving Avenue home, ordering his involuntary commitment to a hospital for mental health reasons.
An officer who went to the hospital to tell Villa to stay away from Scranton schools found he was “very agitated and seemed to be having a breakdown.”
As Villa talked to someone on his cell phone, he “became very irate,” which prompted the hospital to withdraw his phone privileges, according to the complaint.
When a staff member told him he couldn’t have his cell phone, Villa “became irate and threw this phone at a GCMC security guard, ... striking him in the head,” the affidavit says.
He is charged with aggravated and simple assault and harassment for the hospital incident. He is charged with defiant trespass on school grounds and criminal trespass for the school visit. A preliminary hearing is scheduled for Sept. 30.
How Villa was vetted
In one of her emails, Eskra said Cognetti said all the mayor’s nominations to volunteer boards, commissions and authorities are vetted by city personnel.
“Vetting routinely includes an in-person interview and resume, as well as a background check to evaluate their criminal, tax, and code enforcement records,” Eskra wrote. “This process applies for our over 100 volunteer board, commission and authority seats. Prior to Mayor Cognetti’s administration, the process did not entail code enforcement checks or criminal docket checks. We added these in early 2024.”
Eskra said Cognetti began considering Villa while he worked for “a large, reputable nonprofit the city regularly collaborates with.”
“City staff reviewed his resume, met with him in person, vetted him for any delinquent taxes or fees, and submitted his appointment to City Council, who unanimously approved his appointment,” she wrote.
In an interview Thursday, McAndrew, the councilman and frequent Cognetti critic, called the episode “unfortunate.”
“I'm not going to take shots at everybody, but we need to do better,” McAndrew said. “I don’t know" (why a criminal background check was not a normal part of vetting), he said.
“It might have been past practice, but that doesn't make it a good practice,” he said. “I mean, we've encountered a huge issue here, and we have to fix this moving forward and properly vet and thoroughly vet everyone that's put on authorities, commissions or boards.”
