Posted on Tue, Jul. 13, 2004
Ex-Adelphia manager found dead in prison
Associated Press
ALLENTOWN, Pa. - A man who pleaded guilty to using phony names to get jobs, obtain bank loans and defraud a cable company was found dead in his prison cell Tuesday, authorities said.
Josepf Steven Horvath, known as John Wayne Truelove to his neighbors and co-workers at Adelphia Communications, was found around 2:45 a.m. with a piece of cloth around his neck and tied to the upper bunk in his cell, Lehigh County officials said. Attempts to revive him failed and he was officially pronounced dead about 45 minutes later, The Morning Call of Allentown reported on its Web site.
In May, Horvath, then 41, and an accomplice, Daniel Wirth, pleaded guilty to conspiracy to commit mail and bank fraud. Both agreed to forfeit more than $1 million garnered through computer service contracts arranged between them when Horvath was an information technology manager for Adelphia; the company was based in Coudersport at the time, but has since moved to Colorado.
Authorities had struggled to learn Horvath's identity because he had used so many aliases.
Using the name Joseph Hessler, Horvath once went to prison for lying when he claimed he had been robbed of a $30,000 night deposit. He used the name John Truelove when he worked for Adelphia's office in Buffalo, N.Y. He once posed as a California doctor and last year burned down his $226,000 bungalow in Upper Saucon, near Allentown, for the insurance money, authorities said.
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