Three Canton-area residents who are accused of robbing a bank in Pennsylvania last week are believed to have been involved in robbing the Citizens Bank last month in North Canton, North Canton police said Saturday.

North Canton police listed the suspects as Matthew D. Smith, 32; Christopher Lucius, 36 and Latoya Young, 43, all with Canton addresses.

Police did not disclose what evidence they had linking the three to the July 18 bank robbery.

The department said a man wearing a dark medical mask and wearing a hooded sweatshirt showed a gun at the Citizens Bank at 1000 N. Main St. on July 18. He took an undisclosed amount of money and fled as a passenger in a stolen Honda Civic, according to witnesses.

Police: Masked, armed man robs Citizens Bank in North Canton

Canton trio accused of bank robbery in Pennsylvania

At 12:40 p.m. Wednesday, Center Township police in Beaver County along with officers from the nearby police departments in Aliquippa and Monaca, Pennsylvania, responded to a report of a bank robbery. The heist took place at the First Commonwealth Bank branch at 80 Wagner Road, Center Township Police Chief Aldo Legge told Beaver County Radio.

The bank is a roughly 96-minute drive from North Canton.

The three Canton residents were arrested after the robbery. Legge told Beaver County Radio that $80,000 was stolen from the bank.

According to Beaver County online court records, the three, were arraigned in Magisterial District Court on Wednesday night. They are being held in the Beaver County Jail each on $1 million bond. They have a preliminary court hearing scheduled for Sept. 11. The three have been charged with felonies of robbery with the threat of immediate serious harm; robbery with the demand of money from a financial institution; and conspiracy to commit robbery with the threat of immediate serious harm. Lucius and Young have also been charged with conspiracy to commit robbery with the demand of money from a financial institution.

The North Canton police’s statement said officers expect the U.S. Attorney’s Office will file federal charges against the defendants “along with other local cases.”

North Canton police said it worked with the FBI to locate the suspects and that investigators had the three under surveillance Wednesday. And its statement said the FBI and the Pennsylvania State Police were involved in taking the three into custody.

As of Saturday, no federal charges against the three had appeared in the federal court docket, and no local charges related to bank robberies could be found on any Stark County online court docket.

Reach Robert at robert.wang@cantonrep.com. X formerly Twitter: @rwangREP.

Harrisburg – Committed to providing financial support to reduce underage and dangerous alcohol consumption, the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board (PLCB) today announced it will award more than $3.3 million to 86 schools, community organizations, municipalities, law enforcement organizations, nonprofit organizations, for-profit organizations, and institutions of higher education through the 2024-26 Alcohol Education Grant Program.

This year, of 102 grant applications received, 86 organizations from 41 counties across Pennsylvania were awarded a total of $3,312,205 in grants. The maximum award for each two-year grant is $50,000.

Of the grants awarded:

• 23 will fund community law-enforcement efforts for targeted underage patrols, training, community outreach, and equipment.
• 23 will be used to support community and nonprofit organizations by funding initiatives such as MADD’s Power of Parents®, and Parents Who Host Lose the Most®, public service announcements, and enforcement efforts.
• Eight will go to primary and secondary schools to fund various programs aimed at reaching students, such as social norms media campaigns, guest speakers, and impaired driving simulation activities.
• 31 college and university grants will help schools develop strategies to reduce underage and dangerous alcohol use through surveys and assessments, enforcement efforts, attendance at alcohol education conferences, training for resident assistants, peer education programs, and evidence-informed programs like EVERFI AlcoholEdu® and Alcohol eCHECKUP TO GO.
• One will go to a for-profit organization aimed at peer-to-peer outreach and public service announcements.

The complete list of grant recipients and projects is available at lcb.pa.gov.

In addition to the provision of millions of dollars in alcohol education grants to communities, educational institutions, and law enforcement agencies, the PLCB works to educate the public about the dangers of underage and dangerous drinking through a variety of other avenues, including a free annual alcohol educational conference, an award-winning prevention campaign – Know When. Know How.^SM – targeted to underage drinking, the creation and distribution of a wide range of educational materials, Responsible Alcohol Management Program training and resources for licensees, and training and technical assistance for organizations working to address the issues related to irresponsible consumption.

The PLCB regulates the distribution of beverage alcohol in Pennsylvania, operates about 600 wine and spirits stores statewide, and licenses 20,000 alcohol producers, retailers, and handlers. The PLCB also works to reduce and prevent dangerous and underage drinking through partnerships with schools, community groups, and licensees. Taxes and store profits – totaling nearly $20.3 billion since the agency’s inception – are returned to Pennsylvania’s General Fund, which finances Pennsylvania’s schools, health and human services programs, law enforcement, and public safety initiatives, among other important public services. The PLCB also provides financial support for the Pennsylvania State Police Bureau of Liquor Control Enforcement, the Department of Drug and Alcohol Programs, other state agencies, and local municipalities across the state. For more information about the PLCB, visit lcb.pa.gov.

Editor’s note: This interview first appeared in Spotlight PA’s PA Local newsletter on Sept. 9, 2022.

Pennsylvania’s fleeting pawpaw season has arrived, and for the next few weeks the commonwealth’s native tropical fruit — nicknamed the “hillbilly mango” — is ripe for the picking, assuming you can find one.

We talked to Ohio chef, culinary educator, and author Sara Bir about The Pocket Pawpaw Cookbook, which includes an introduction by forager Alexis Nikole Nelson and recipes for everything from pawpaw cornbread to pawpaw ketchup.

Our conversation — touching on the do’s and definite don’ts of the fruit and why Bir says she’s yet to meet a bad person who likes them — has been edited for clarity and length.

Spotlight PA: Can you describe the taste of a pawpaw for anyone who hasn’t tried one?

Sara Bir: I like to say that it is most like a mango and a banana and yet something completely unfamiliar laughs>. It has a lot of tropical flavors. It is in the custard apple family. It’s the most northerly member of that fruit family. Its relatives are all down in the tropics.

What about texture?

When pawpaws are ripe they are very soft. They’re like baby food.

What’s your favorite pawpaw recipe? I thought your pawpaw lassi idea was genius.

That is my favorite. I use buttermilk instead of yogurt, but you could certainly use yogurt. And I garnish it with a little nutmeg or cumin on top, which is really the only authentic part of this lassi. (Find the full recipe in Columbus Monthly.)

What can’t a pawpaw do?

They don’t do well when heated. It has a lot of volatile flavor compounds that are destroyed when you heat them, leaving a bit of a funky aftertaste.

Got it. So best served cold. What about dried pawpaw?

Oh, Colin, that’s an excellent question. It does not work. When you dehydrate a pawpaw or cook it down enough, it will concentrate a naturally occurring compound that is the same thing that is found in ipecac syrup, which is used to induce vomiting.

So pawpaw lassi for my friends and fruit leather for my enemies. On that note: You once said, “I have yet to meet a person who is drawn to pawpaws who is not a good person.” What did you mean by that?

Sure. I think anybody who even hears about pawpaws is somebody who has their feelers out for something that’s outside of their daily existence. They’re people who are open-minded.

Does the pawpaw have a type?

When I go to the Ohio Pawpaw Festival you see people with all kinds of backgrounds — religious backgrounds, political beliefs, lifestyles — but the thing they have in common is this affinity for an atypical fruit. (Editor’s note: York County, Pennsylvania has a pawpaw festival happening in September too.)

Is the pawpaw countercultural? Or is that going too far?

I don’t think it’s going too far. It’s both countercultural and very, very traditional. It’s a seasonal thing that was passed down through generations by the people who settled in these areas. I’d almost say it’s an underground thing. This whole slow-burning pawpaw phenomenon has been from the ground up, and it had to be because you can’t get them in stores.

Will that change?

There is pawpaw ice cream, gelato, and beer. But the reason you don’t see the fresh fruit in stores is because the fruits ripen at different times on the same tree. You can’t just pick them and have them ripen off the tree. If you bring a hard pawpaw home, it’s gonna stay hard.

It would take years and years of [selective] breeding, and while plant people have been working on it, nobody’s been throwing money behind it.

What’s the best way to find them fresh then?

I mean this sounds ridiculous, but once you are identified as a pawpaw-curious person, there is somebody who’s eventually going to come up to you in person or on social media and be like, ‘Oh, hey, there’s a pawpaw tree growing on blah, blah, blah, blah, blah.’

And that’s what’s so cool about the whole thing: This has happened not because some marketer thought it was a great idea. It’s not because an influencer is really into pawpaws and making smoothies that make your hair and skin beautiful. It’s just people talking to people about stuff they think is cool.

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