WB_VOICE/PAGES [A01] | 07/17/10
Nanticoke Little League rolls to tournament final. B1
JULY 18, 2010
Newsstand $1.50
THE SUNDAY VOICE
Marcellus Shale
Joel Field, left, and Harry Traver, along with Doug Brody, took on much of the responsibility in forging an agreement with
Carrizo Oil & Gas for the mineral rights to about 8,500 acres in Noxen Township, Wyoming County.
Community stays tight as companies come calling
By Patrick Sweet | Staff Writer
NOXEN TWP. — Harry Traver
and Doug Brody glanced at each
other, stood up and followed their
neighbor’s lead.
“We didn’t drive all the way out
here to make changes,” neighbor
Joel Field reacted when Carrizo Oil
& Gas proposed amendments to the
multi-million-dollar deal the three
came to finalize.
Before the men made it very far,
the company reeled them back to
the bargaining table at its Pitts-
burgh office and hammered out a
natural gas deal that includes the
mineral rights to roughly 8,500
acres.
The three men, willing to walk
away from a deal worth more than
$4 million with the potential to
become much more than $40 mil-
lion, exemplify the roughly 135 fam-
ilies they represent.
They share the ideals of a com-
munity that came together and
protested the closing of its post
office on a bitter December morn-
ing. They embrace the camarade-
rie of a community that answered
the call when its historic train
station was threatened with
demolition and raised funds to
protect it.
So, when gas company landmen
approached residents in rural Nox-
en Township, they demonstrated
perhaps their greatest skill: their
ability to unite.
Gas lease records at center of right-to-know controversy
By Patrick Sweet | Staff Writer
Nobody in the Wyoming County
Recorder of Deeds Office is familiar
with e-mail or knows how to use a
flash drive.
At least, that is what the office
argues as it fights The Citizens’
Voice’s appeal for public records.
The newspaper has appealed the
office’s refusal to provide the news-
paper records of natural gas leases
in an electronic format.
© 2010 The Citizens’ Voice WEATHER
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Northeastern Pennsylvania’s New Frontier
Cyclists pass the Whistle Pig Farm on Route 29 in Noxen Township.
Online: View a database of
more than 6,000 gas leases in
Luzerne, Lackawanna and
Wyoming counties at
citizensvoice.com/drilling.
“Ninety-five percent of the peo-
ple that signed live here,” Brody
said. “I mean, this is our home …
It’s been our group’s home for years
and generations in some cases. We
took our time and I think we did it
right.”
“My office staff, including myself,
are not trained or familiar with
loading information on a ‘flash
drive’ as suggested by the request-
er,” Recorder of Deeds Dennis Mon-
tross wrote in an affidavit in
response to the newspaper’s
appeal.
The newspaper made its initial
request on June 15. In a June 23 e-
mail to Wyoming County Solicitor
James Davis, the newspaper sug-
gested the office e-mail the records
BIRTHDAYS D8 EDITORIAL
BRIDES D3 HOROSCOPE
CLASSIFIED E-F LOTTERY
A2 CROSSWORD D5 OBITUARIES A6-7 SWB YANKEES B9
LUZERNE COUNTY’S LARGEST AND FASTEST-GROWING NEWSPAPER AUDIENCE
Breaking news, blogs, videos and more online at www.citizensvoice.com
Anatomy
of Noxen’s
BIG
DEAL
MARK MORAN / THE SUNDAY VOICE
KRISTEN MULLEN / THE SUNDAY VOICE
kin Patch, Field found himself
responsible for preserving the hopes
of his family, friends and neighbors
for a lucrative gas lease. The Noxen
Area Gas Group was born.
“I kind of stood up and said,
‘Well, we ought to try this and we
ought to try that,’ and everybody
said, ‘OK. Great. Go do that,’” the
47-year-old farmer said. “… The
responsibility was awesome.”
Over a 2½-year span, those
responsibilities included innumer-
A gas group is born
able hours of courthouse research,
Residents gathered under the
days studying the natural gas
pavilion behind Noxen United
industry and negotiating deals that
Methodist Church to formulate
never succeeded.
their plan of action. Across the
street from his Whistle Pig Pump-
See NOXEN, page A9
but would drive from Wilkes-Barre Recorder of Deeds office is required
to Tunkhannock if necessary to put to provide its records in the format
the files on a disc or portable mem- it maintains them. Because the
ory card such as a flash drive. The office stores its records electroni-
e-mail suggestion is ignored in the cally, it must provide them electron-
office’s response. ically.
The newspaper requested the The office, though, doesn’t want
records to update its online data- to lose the ability to charge for
base of oil and gas leases for the paper copies and said it will fight
public. “tooth and nail” to protect its
Under the state Right-to-Know records.
law, the law that establishes the peo- See RECORDS, page A11
ple’s rights to public records, the
C2 OUTDOORS B12
D5 SCHOOLS D2 Cap holds, but
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for how long? A8
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IN CO
INSIDE
UPONS
#1
Pittston
native
sought
by feds
By Dave Janoski
Staff Writer
In 1982, Pittston Area High
School graduate Rosemary
Sauter-Frett landed in the
sunny U.S. Virgin Islands and
established an accounting
firm on St. Thomas, one of
the four main islands in the
popular tourist mecca and a
favorite stop for Caribbean
cruise ships.
Over the next 28 years, she
established
the largest
real-estate
fir m in the
U.S. territory,
branched out
into the res-
taurant busi-
ness and
g a i n e d a Sauter-Frett
prominent
perch in the islands’ business
community.
But in February, Sauter-
Frett fled paradise with $2.5
million placed in her care by
her real estate customers,
investigators say, leaving
behind questions about her
role in a police corruption
case and an alleged murder-
for-hire plot aimed at her hus-
band.
Sauter-Frett, a graduate of
Penn State Erie in her 50s
who is a mother of six, is the
subject of arrest warrants
issued by the Virgin Islands
Department of Justice and
the FBI.
“We believe that she has
fled the jurisdiction of the U.S.
Virgin Islands,” said FBI Spe-
cial Agent Harry Rodriguez,
stationed in San Juan, Puerto
Rico, about 40 miles west of
St. Thomas. “We are following
up some leads, but I can’t get
into any details of the investi-
gation.”
Sauter-Frett’s excellent
island adventure began to
sour last year when she
became embroiled in a series
of financial disputes with oth-
er real estate agents, accord-
ing to published reports, and
her name surfaced in a high-
profile police corruption case.
In December, Sauter-Frett
was a witness in the trial of
three men, including two Vir-
gin Islands police officers,
accused of trying to extort
$5,000 from a maintenance
worker with one of her com-
panies.
The maintenance worker,
Richard Motta, left a kilogram
of fake cocaine in a car rented
under Sauter-Frett’s name
that was impounded by police
in a St. Thomas neighborhood
in December 2008. A police
captain and sergeant, working
with a civilian accomplice,
sought $5,000 from Motta,
promising not to turn over the
fake cocaine, which they
claimed tested positive for
drugs, to federal narcotics
agents.
Motta, who has multiple
felony convictions, and Sau-
ter-Frett sought the help of
the Virgin Islands police com-
missioner, who referred them
to the FBI. Motta, 51, wore a
recording device in a meeting
with the three men in which
the $5,000 was exchanged,
according to federal prosecu-
tors.
See ON THE RUN, page A11
Sunday Voice
News Partner
 WB_VOICE/PAGES [A09] | 07/17/10 21:34 | SUPERIMPWB

SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010 THE SUNDAY VOICE A9

Marcellus Shale Northeastern Pennsylvania’s New Frontier

A resident rides his lawnmower down Main Street in Noxen, Wyoming County. The town has a population of 926, according to 2005 U.S. Census data.

Staff photos by Kristen Mullen

The old Lehigh Valley Railroad train station re-

mains a relic of Noxen’s glory days. On Dec. 31,
1961, the tannery closed, the train stopped and
the town died, author Janet R. Schooley wrote in
‘Step by Step: Noxen’s History.’

The 113-year-old building now home to the Noxen Historical Community Center earned its place
on the Federal Registry of Historic places in 2006. It opened as a high school in 1902 and closed its
doors in 1976. In 1999, community members set up the Schenck Memorial Library inside. Two years
later residents voted to save the structure and begin a restoration project.

NOXEN: Royalties hinge

on natural gas production
FROM PAGE A1
He even traveled to Hous-
ton to market the land that
their farms, orchards and (Marcellus) LLC. About 130 families with 8, 500 acres of land
businesses have rested on
for generations.
“We didn’t sign in the
end, but for quite a long
time we were dancing with
Chief,” Field said. “The
only reason we danced with
Chief Oil and Gas was
because we did courthouse
research that revealed they
had a couple thousand acres
right contiguous to our
block.”
Field didn’t realize exact-
ly what he was getting him-
self into that day. He never
thought he would have to
hunt down the estranged
brother of a neighboring
family to gain his signature
on their lease.
“It actually took a couple
months to find the brother
in California,” Field said.
“They actually tracked him
down through his union.”
Just as much, Traver and
Brody, the two men whom
Field called upon to help
organize the group, didn’t
think they would be study-
ing geology or helping to
cover a several thousand
dollar attorney bill.
Two days after the group
signed the lease on July 10,
Field, Traver and Brody sat
down with The Citizens’
Voice for an exclusive inter-
view about the experience.
It was a complete about-face
for the tight-lipped trio who
refused to jeopardize any
part of the deal before it
was done.
Strength in numbers
Sitting at the wooden pic- table as he spoke about
nic table behind Field’s working with the group.
house not far from the barn
where the group held some
of its meetings, the three the people together was has struggled to strengthen
men smiled, sharing stories always, I guess, our biggest its economy ever since
of their community that concern,” he said.
was strong enough to stick
together and financially together and that’s what
benefit because of it — a made it happen,” Traver enough people to force the
nice check and thoughts of added.
vacations probably didn’t
hurt as well.
dented life to Noxen’s econ-
Noxen's big deal omy that was once based on
Negotiators for the Noxen Area Gas Group spent nearly 2 1/2 just more than a dozen
years putting together a mineral-rights deal with Carrizo far ms and a handful of
small businesses.
joined the pact worth initially about $4.25
WYOMING million. Each received $500 per acre up front
“When the tannery left,
and will receive additional $4, 500 per acre everything left with it,”
plus 20 percent royalty if exploratory wells on Noxen resident Pearl Race
group property yield strong gas production. said. “This was a booming
Detail town at one time.”
LUZERNE Eaton So, when a gas company
29 comes and injects millions
of dollars into a community
that has seen half a century
pass by since its industrial
backbone collapsed, resi-
Monroe 292 dents are more than excit-
Northmoreland ed.
“I think it’s a wonderful
A view of St. Luke’s Reformation Lutheran Church
and Bowmans Creek as seen from a lot adjacent
Noxen thing,” Race said. “It’s got
to help financially; much to Main Street in Noxen.
309
Perrins more taxes, much more landman Phillip Corey said, cerned with what might
Marsh
WYOMING Lake money. … We’re going to to get an idea of what they’d unfold.
Catalpa finish paying our mortgage
415 find.
LUZERNE 309 off.” “Based on what we see, it Undrinkable water?
Harveys Harveys
29 Lake Carrizo paid each lessor looks OK,” Corey said. Noxen resident Viola
Lake Dallas $500 per acre up front with
“You’re trying to extrapo- Robbins, 72, has family in
Lake 415
an additional $4,500 and 20 late a picture with three Dimock Township, the post-
Dallas percent royalty if the com- data points, though, when er-child community for
Huntsville pany finds a decent supply
Reservoir Kingston what you really need is a environmental disasters
of gas. hundred.” caused by natural gas drill-
Owned by organizer Noxen Acreage Block On the day of the signing, The uncertainty is why
Joel Field ing. Thousands of gallons
North area
Traver said, an elderly Carrizo didn’t pay the full of potentially carcinogenic
Sterling Farms, a woman who was having
company owned by $5,000 per acre up front. The drilling fluid spilled just
the Sordoni family South area trouble getting by stepped company will drill two outside the town.
up to the table, leased her exploratory wells to test the “They can’t do nothing,”
BOB SANCHUK / STAFF ARTIST roughly 1-acre property and area’s potential before cut- Robbins said. “(The gas
took her check. Traver’s ting any more checks. company) brought them
wife, Dawn, offered to take
Online: View a database of her to the bank.
The Noxen group is split
into southern and northern
water for drinking and
cooking.”
more than 6,000 gas leases in The woman, Traver said, areas. Carrizo will drill one Toxic water forced Rob-
declined the offer. well in each area. If gas pro-
Luzerne, Lackawanna and “I want to keep it for a duction is strong in the
bins’ great-niece Andrea
Ely and her family to move
Wyoming counties at couple days just to look at north but not the south, back in with her parents.
it,” she said. Carrizo will only have to
citizensvoice.com/drilling. The possibility of a check pay northern landowners
“I’m against it,” Robbins
said. “Maybe it’s me. It
more than 10 times the and vice versa. might be a different story if
Field, with large glasses we first started out, was to amount they just received, Wooden stakes with neon I had lots of land for them
and dirt beneath his finger- stick together as a family, as it seems, has most folks flags tied to the tops mark to drill on.”
nails from working in his a community,” Field contin- embracing the words of for- the location of the northern Still, many others have
fields, drummed on the ued. mer Alaskan Gov. Sarah well in Field’s pumpkin faith that Carrizo won’t
It’s not difficult to imag- Palin: “Drill, baby, drill.” patch. The Sordoni family’s make the same mistakes as
ine why the community massive Sterling Far ms Cabbot Oil and Gas did in
“Getting up to speed on would unite so well. The And drill, they will property will play host to Dimock Township.
(natural gas) and keeping tiny farming community “We want production,” the southern well. “We all own farms down
Field said. “We’re not just The Sordoni property is through here,” Traver said.
out there to get the bonus one of a few properties “When these people say that
Mosser Tanning Co. left money. The value in this directly abutting Harveys they are worried about the
“But the people stayed town in 1961. arrangement is in the roy- Lake. A provision in the water, they aren’t as wor-
The tannery employed alty.” lease prevents Carrizo from ried as these guys, because
The problem is compa- drilling within 500 feet of that’s how they make their
construction of a second nies aren’t quite sure the any structure or water living.”
“Some of our principles hotel and a row of houses gas is there. Carrizo bought source.
in the very beginning, when nearby. It brought unprece- 2-D seismic data, senior Still, some folks are con- psweet@citizensvoice.com, 570-821-2117
 WB_VOICE/PAGES [A11] | 07/17/10 22:52 | SUPERIMPWB

SUNDAY, JULY 18, 2010

LOCAL / STATE THE SUNDAY VOICE A11

RECORDS: ON THE RUN: Whereabouts unknown Man charged for shooting at cop
Appeal under FROM PAGE A1
During the corruption
The department has
interviewed Sauter-Frett’s
late on the reasons Mrs.
Sauter-Frett is on the run.
The Philadelphia Inquirer

Less than two days after a

review by state
FROM PAGE A1
“We have to protect our
records,” Nancy Kilmas, a
deputy in the recorder’s office,
said after refusing to provide
the records on June 15.
A reporter attempted to
obtain the records in person.
An employee with the record-
er’s office showed the reporter
a list of gas lease records on
her computer monitor, exactly
what the newspaper request-
ed. When the reporter asked
the employee to transfer the
information to a flash drive,
the employee refused, saying
the transfer violated office
policy. Montross would have
to OK the transfer but was
out-of-town, she said.
A written request was filed.
On June 21, Davis said in an
e-mail that the office was enti-
tled to an extension of the
normal five business days
allowed by law to respond to
the request for records.
“Under the open records
law section 902 (65 P.S. section
902), when legal review is nec-
essary to determine whether
your request is subject to
access, the agency is entitled
to 30 days to respond as to
whether the request can be
granted as stated,” Davis
wrote.
In its response to the news-
paper’s appeal, Montross
retracted, though, and wrote:
“All records in the Wyoming
County Recorder of Deeds
Office are considered public
records.” The admission
negated any need for the ini-
tial legal review.
Montross also wrote in his
response to the newspaper’s
appeal that the record request-
ed is a “special report.” The
special report, he wrote, is
also “an internal report, not
normally produced for the
public.”
According to employees in
his own office, though, the
report is produced for area
banks, not for internal use.
The office charges $15 for a
month’s worth of data, Kilmas
said June 15.
Because the records are
stored electronically and the
office does not incur a cost for
producing the record, the $15
charge violates state law, the
newspaper maintains.
Under section 1307 of the
Right-to-Know law, “except as
otherwise provided by statute,
no other fees may be imposed
unless the agency necessarily
incurs costs for complying
with the request, and such
fees must be reasonable.”
The state Office of Open
Records is reviewing the
appeal.
trial, defense attor neys
argued the police were actu-
ally investigating a murder-
for-hire conspiracy involv-
ing Sauter-Frett and Motta
aimed at Sauter-Frett’s hus-
band, Jacob. The officers
were only pretending to be
corrupt in order to gain
Motta’s confidence, they
said.
Sauter-Frett was subpoe-
naed by the defense, but rul-
ings by the president judge
barred them from fully pur-
suing the murder-for-hire
theory during her testimo-
ny. The case ended in a mis-
trial in December.
On Jan. 29, the defen-
dants were convicted of
extortion in a second trial
in which Sauter-Frett did
not testify.
Just days later, two real-
tors in Sauter-Frett’s RE/
MAX Dream Properties real
estate office filed suit seek-
ing to free ze escrow
accounts controlled by Sau-
ter-Frett.
The suit claimed she was
using money from the
accounts, which contained
deposits from customers,
for her own use.
At the same time, the St.
Thomas Board of Realtors
advised its members not to
place money in Sauter-
Frett’s accounts because
deposit checks had alleged-
ly gone missing.
By Feb. 5, the Virgin
Islands Department of Jus-
tice had filed an arrest war-
rant for Sauter-Frett, who
could not be found, and
closed her real estate office.
husband, who claimed not
to know her whereabouts,
according to the Virgin
Islands Daily News, a news-
paper on St. Thomas, which,
like The Citizens’ Voice, is
owned by Scranton-based
Times-Shamrock Commu-
nications.
Investigators estimate
that $2.5 million is missing
from the escrow accounts,
according to department
spokeswoman Sara Leza-
ma.
The story took a new
twist on July 3 when the
bullet-ridden body of the
civilian convicted in the
police corruption case, Lou-
is Roldan, was found in a
burning SUV in an aban-
doned housing project on
St. Croix, one of the other
main islands in the U.S. Vir-
gin Islands. Roldan, 29, was
free on bail pending his sen-
tencing.
Lezama and FBI spokes-
man Rodriguez said they
did not believe the Roldan
killing had any link to Sau-
ter-Frett’s disappearance.
Lezama said she couldn’t
comment on whether Sau-
ter-Frett might have been
motivated to flee the Virgin
Islands out of concern for
her own safety.
“I’m not going to specu-
SIGNED.
SEALED.
DELIVERED.
centur y21shgroup.com
Obviously she has some
q u e s t i o n abl e bu s i n e s s
police officer was wounded
when three men armed with
practices and has had assault type weapons
some ties to suspected peo- opened fire, a plainclothes
ple who have been convict- officer was fired upon in the
ed of wrongdoing,” Leza- Hunting Park section early
ma said. “As to what her Saturday as he chased a
motivation is, I can’t speak man on foot.
to that.” Saturday’s incident ended
Sauter-Frett has several with a bare-chested man
relatives, including at least arrested and charged with
one sister, who live in the aggravated assault for
Pittston area. They either shooting at the officer and
could not be reached or also for wounding a civilian.
declined comment. His shirt was snagged on an
alley fence he clamored over
djanoski@citizensvoice.com
570-301-2178 during the pursuit.
Meanwhile, a suspect in
“Our family is full
of problems...”
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in his mid back that never seems to go away.
We could hardly get around to
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Then one evening we were
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the Thursday shooting of
Officer Kevin Livewell
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and won’t release his name
as they search for his two
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was scheduled to undergo
surgery over the weekend at
Temple University Hospital
for a wound to his right leg
after he was shot in Kens-
ington Thursday.
In the Saturday incident,
Kevin Brown, 18, of the 1300
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all the fuss about! Are we glad we did? You
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psweet@citizensvoice.com
570-821-2117

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