State News - Saturday Mar. 10 2007

GRINDSTONE, Pa. (AP) - The Fayette County Coroner is planning an autopsy on a man found with his throat slashed when emergency crews arrived to fight a fire at his home. Details are emerging slowly in the case, but police say is appears the fire might have been set to cover up an attack. Coroner Tim Warco says the man was 54 years old, but is not releasing his identity at this hour. State police say the man was found in the burning farmhouse in Jefferson Township late this afternoon. He later died at Mon Valley Hospital. Police and the coroner say the fire is suspicious and police a requestioning at least one person in the man's death at this hour.

PITTSBURGH (AP) - A former western Pennsylvania high school sports referee will spend eight years in federal prison for receiving child pornography and illegally possessing a gun. Fifty-nine-year-old Harold J. Stancliffe of Verona pleaded guilty in October and was sentenced today in federal court. Stancliffe was charged because he allegedly shared child pornography over the Internet with a police officer investigating such crimes. The weapons charge was filed when authorities found Stancliffe had a .32-caliber revolver. That was illegal because Stancliffe had a felony record for a 1981 robbery conviction and an insurance fraud conviction in 2000. Before he was charged, Stancliffe had worked for about a decade at several dozen schools in Westmoreland County and Pittsburgh's eastern suburbs as a baseball, football and basketball official.