EASTON, Pa. -- As president judge of Cambria County, Pa., Joseph O'Kicki sent a lot of bad guys to jail. But he doesn't want to go himself.
On Monday O'Kicki skipped a hearing in an apparent attempt to avoid going to prison for a 1989 conviction for bribery, criminal coercion and official oppression.
Jack Lewis of the state Attorney General's Office said O'Kicki, a classmate of former Attorney General Richard Thornburgh and a judge for two decades, called one of his lawyers Friday and said he was in hospital and wouldn't be making the Monday hearing.
'But he wouldn't say which hospital or where it was located,' Lewis said.
'We don't know where he is,' said Jack Lewis, a spokesman for the Attorney General's Office.
There was some speculation that O'Kicki might try to flee to the former Yugoslavian republic of Slovenia, where his wife, Sylvia, is studying.
Judge Richard Grifo revoked O'Kicki's $10,000 bail and ordered him taken into custody so he could begin serving his two-to-five year sentence at the state prison in Pittsburgh.
The state Supreme Court denied O'Kicki's appeal last month.
