PITTSBURGH (AP) – A community activist and former mayoral candidate who has blamed past legal troubles on racism and police persecution has been jailed again on charges stemming from false alarm 911 calls placed from his home.
Abdula “A.J.” Richardson, 38, and his wife, Felecia, 44, are awaiting trial in July on charges they conspired to make more than 100 such calls from their former residence in the city last year.
Now, Allegheny County police contend the couple is responsible for several calls made on a cellphone from their address in East Pittsburgh – a separate municipality – on April 2 and in February.
A secretary for the defense attorney listed in court records as representing the Richardsons in their upcoming trial told The Associated Press that another attorney is now involved. That new attorney, Elbert Gray, did not immediately return calls for comment.
The Richardsons face a preliminary hearing April 21 on the new charges which stem from two incidents.
Someone called 911 from a cellphone whose number is registered to Abdula Richardson about 6:30 p.m. April 2. Three East Pittsburgh officers responded after the caller confirmed the address and a 911 operator heard yelling in the background, according to the criminal complaints.
Felecia Richardson met police at the apartment door with a cellphone in her hand, but denied it was used to make the call or five others which began shortly before 4 p.m. that day. Some of those calls were hang ups, while others reported unknown trouble, police said.
Felecia Richardson told police her husband was at a gym and that there weren’t any other phones in the apartment – but a 911 operator still on the line told police that their voices could be heard through a still-open phone line in the apartment. The call disconnected shortly after that, even though police noted that Felecia Richardson hadn’t moved to disconnect a call from the phone she held.
Shortly afterward, police discovered Abdula Richardson was not at the gym but lying in bed inside the apartment.
Abdula Richardson reportedly told police he was being “spoofed” and that he was being targeted because he was a former Pittsburgh mayoral candidate.
Spoofing means someone else was making the calls from another location, but using technology to make it appear the calls were coming from a cellphone in Richardson’s apartment. The Richardsons made the same argument when they were arrested for the calls at issue in the pending trial.
The April 2 incident prompted police to investigate further, and they charged Felecia Richardson with making several 911 calls using two different phones on Feb. 3.
Richardson ran a distant fourth in the 2013 Democratic mayoral primary, and has announced plans to run for another office, but never has.
Weeks before the primary, he was arrested and charged with drunken driving after three officers found him slumped over the wheel of his minivan, which was still running.
According to a criminal complaint, Richardson berated the officers – all of whom, like Richardson, are Black – for being “subservient to the White man.” He also made a public statement calling the charges a “feeble attempt to discredit me” before issuing an apology hours later and, eventually, pleading guilty.
About Post Author
