Bedford DA Childers-Potts resigns; judge appoints veteran prosecutor to job

Feb. 10—BEDFORD, Pa. — Bedford County District Attorney Lesley Childers-Potts has resigned from the post, she said Friday, and Bedford County's president judge has sworn in a veteran prosecutor to temporarily serve in her place.

The sudden resignation comes just weeks after Childers-Potts told The Tribune-Democrat she did not plan to seek reelection this year — and after her office had three cases end in mistrials in a single year.

In a statement Friday, Childers-Potts said the decision to step down was "the right thing" for the county, herself and her family as she prepares to return to private law practice and looks forward to the "next chapter" of her career.

"It has been an honor to serve the citizens of my home county," she said, adding that she'll be "forever grateful" for the opportunity.

Childers-Potts had been the sole prosecutor in her office in recent months, with several vacant assistant prosecutor jobs forcing her to hand over some cases to the state Office of Attorney General.

Without a first assistant district attorney to assume control of the office, the decision to replace Childers-Potts fell to Bedford County President Judge Travis Livengood, who appointed Bedford County attorney Dwight Diehl to the position through the rest of 2023.

The job is up for election this year.

In the meantime, Diehl is no stranger to the office. He previously was district attorney for four years and also has been an assistant prosecutor. He launched an unsuccessful campaign for judge in 2019 and has also operated a private law practice in the Bedford area.

"I will keep the new district attorney in my prayers as they work toward improving our county court system," Childers-Potts said in a statement Friday.

When Childers-Potts said in January that she wouldn't run for another term, she cited her desire to shift her time and focus on other priorities — specifically her family — after spending long days at the courthouse for years.

Childers-Potts' ascent to the elected office was a sudden one in 2018. She was sworn into the job the same day her former boss, William Higgins Jr., resigned while facing a list of charges that he helped women dodge punishment for sexual favors. Higgins pleaded guilty in 2018, receiving house arrest and eight years of probation.

Childers-Potts was elected to the position a year later, but it hasn't been without challenges.

Her office was under a national spotlight in 2020 for the perceived way it handled an investigation regarding a shooting between a Schellsburg-area man and a Milwaukee civil rights activist who was part of a group marching along U.S. Route 30.

Critics said Childers-Potts dragged her feet on the case for months after receiving a report recommending charges in the hot-button case. She ended up charging both men who fired shots at one another.

For part of the past year, Childers-Potts has also at times been the only attorney within her office, which typically has more than 100 cases moving through the system.

In a more extreme example of the trouble prosecutors statewide have had filling vacancies within their offices, Childers-Potts referred 36 active cases to the state Office of Attorney General to oversee last fall after at least two assistant prosecutors resigned. The total was approximately 20% of her caseload, she told the Altoona Mirror at the time.

Last month, the county's president judge issued harsh words for her office after declaring a mistrial — that is, a trial declared to be invalid due to an error in the proceedings, a courtroom rarity — in a child endangerment case due to a prosecutorial error.

Noting it was one of three mistrials declared in 2022 in Bedford County due to prosecutors' errors, Livengood cited a "pattern of reckless prosecutorial conduct" that was "detrimental to the proper functioning of the criminal justice system and harmful to the public's trust in its courts."