Ruling is awaited to decide future of slain CI's case against county
Oct. 30—A federal judge will decide whether to dismiss a lawsuit filed by the mother of a mentally ill woman murdered by a drug dealer she helped arrest while acting as a confidential informant.
The attorneys representing Katie Gatto, whose daughter, Nina Gatto, was killed April 20, 2018, by Cornelius Mapson to halt her testimony against him, argued that U.S. District Judge Christopher C. Conner should deny the request for dismissal made by the detectives and prosecutors who should have protected her.
"They did not warn her that he was going to be released on bail, and they made no effort to secure her safety," wrote Gatto's attorneys in a brief filed Oct. 7. "This tragic case involves not one incidence of reckless indifference, but an unmistakable pattern of reckless and callous disregard."
Scranton police arrested Mapson, 38, shortly after Gatto's killing and charged he suffocated the 24-year-old woman after a plot to poison her with a heroin overdose failed.
Police also arrested two co-conspirators — Kevin Weeks, 30, and Melinda Palermo, 40. Weeks pleaded guilty March 11, 2020, to conspiracy to commit third-degree murder. Palermo pleaded guilty the following day to third-degree murder.
Both were sentenced Jan. 6, 2021, to 15 to 40 years in prison. Lackawanna County Judge James Gibbons in May 2022 denied Palermo's request to reduce her sentence.
A county jury found Mapson guilty in June 2020 of first-degree murder. He is serving a life sentence in prison.
In September 2021, Katie Gatto filed suit alleging county detectives failed to protect her daughter, who helped bring a drug prosecution against Mapson.
The suit alleged former Chief Detective Joseph Jordan and county Detectives John Munley and Harold Zech used Gatto as an informant despite knowing she had been declared mentally incompetent to care for herself. The suit, brought by attorneys Robert Levant, Sal Cognetti Jr., Vincent Cimini and Sarah Lloyd, also named as defendants District Attorney Mark Powell, Detective Corey Condrad and Lackawanna County.
About a year after its filing, Conner ordered that aspects of the lawsuit may move forward, including the theory that the county placed Gatto in danger and may be liable for damages.
In September of this year, the defendants filed motions for summary judgment, which sought a ruling from Conner dismissing the case.
They argued the defendants should be shielded from liability because they have qualified immunity. They also argued that the claim the government put Nina Gatto in danger should be dismissed because case law on the subject required her to be restrained at the time she was used as an informant to bust Mapson on drug charges.
"She was not incarcerated, institutionalized or restrained," wrote attorney Tim Hinton. "She was not coerced, pressured or threatened by detectives. Nina served as a CI for the buy-bust on Mapson through her own free will and with her guardian's approval."
In response, Katie Gatto's attorneys argued earlier this month that the U.S. Supreme Court left open the possibility that the government might violate a person's constitutional rights when a state actor "plays a part in creating the danger" or "renders another more vulnerable to the danger."
Conner has not yet made a ruling.
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Contact the writer:
jkohut@scrantontimes.com; 570-348-9100, x5187;
@jkohutTT on Twitter.
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