For nearly 30 years, Anthony Falgiatore Sr. served his community in Chester County in two roles: as an East Whiteland Township police sergeant and a member of the Octorara Area Board of School Directors.
But Falgiatore lost both of those positions, resigning after Pennsylvania State Police charged him in January with illegally recording a closed executive session of the school board, a felony offense.
Last month, Falgiatore, 57, of Atglen, enrolled in an advanced rehabilitative disposition program for first-time offenders that will see his charges dismissed and expunged upon completion.
In a statement, Falgiatore’s attorney, Vince DiFabio, said neither he nor his client wished to comment on the case.
Members of the school board that served with Falgiatore before he resigned after a decade said they were frustrated that someone who swore to uphold the law would violate it so blatantly.
Brian Fox, who served as the board’s president when the 32-minute recording was made, said Falgiatore’s actions were a “betrayal of trust.”
“The thing that made it egregious was his role as a police officer,” Fox said in an interview. “These meetings are closed for a reason. We vote publicly, but we need to meet beforehand to discuss sensitive topics like personnel and legal matters.”
Fox said the April 17, 2023, executive session Falgiatore recorded was one in which they discussed a federal civil-rights lawsuit filed by John Ryan Miller, a local activist. Falgiatore, according to Fox, argued that the Octorara Area School District should not be paying the legal expenses for board members named in the lawsuit.
Miller filed the suit against nearly 80 public officials in the county, including all of the Octorara Area school board except Falgiatore, asserting that his constitutional rights were violated when he was barred from speaking at a public meeting in 2022 and later arrested for trespassing when trying to speak at another meeting.
U.S. District Judge Karen S. Marston dismissed Miller’s suit in March 2024, court records show, saying he had failed to demonstrate that his First Amendment rights were violated by the school board.
A week after he recorded the meeting, Falgiatore wrote in a post on his public Facebook page that he opposed paying legal bills related to Miller’s lawsuit because it “is a private legal matter against the balance of the board members and other district staff in their private person capacity.”
“I am the only board member not named in the lawsuit because I honored my oath of office to protect and defend the US Constitution and the Pa State Constitution and persons rights,” he wrote. “The board denied a citizen the right to speak for 3 minutes during the public comments portion of a board meeting because the citizen would not follow a policy that requires a speaker to identify who they are.”
He said the board’s policy “does not supersede the constitution” and said the issue was one he was fighting on behalf of the constituents who elected him.
It was unclear how much Miller’s lawsuit cost the school board.
Falgiatore was elected to the Octorara Area school board in 2015, and served on it until his resignation in March 2025, days after state police began investigating the recording.
In a letter sent to the board, Falgiatore said he was resigning “so as not to be a distraction to the business of the board.”
Falgiatore’s career with East Whiteland Township police started in 1997, according to an article published in the West Chester Daily Local.
East Whiteland Township Police Chief G. Christian Yeager confirmed to a reporter that Falgiatore is no longer employed by the department but declined to comment further.
What motivated Falgiatore to make the illegal recording of the Octorara Area school board’s executive session remained unclear.
Investigators wrote in the affidavit of probable cause for Falgiatore’s arrest that an East Whiteland Township lieutenant discovered the audio file on his department-issued cell phone in March 2025. Falgiatore had named the file “OSB private meeting.”
Investigators did not say what prompted the East Whiteland lieutenant to search Falgiatore’s phone.
State police troopers played the recording for school board members, including Fox, who confirmed that it was made without their knowledge, the affidavit said.
Investigators also found Falgiatore exchanged texts with someone in December 2024, months after making the illegal recording.
The person, whom police did not name in court filings, instructed Falgliatore to make another recording like he did with the “Curtis blowup,” an apparent reference to the April 2024 executive session, which included then-Octorara Area School District business manager Jeff Curtis, the affidavit said.
(In an interview with state police, Curtis listened to the recording and said he recognized it as being a meeting at which he had “blown up” at Falgliatore, according to the affidavit.)
Two months after making the recording, in an interview with the Lancaster Patriot, a conservative news website, Falgiatore said he was the victim of a harassment campaign because of his support of Miller. He told the site that someone had sent anonymous, threatening letters to his home and began contacting the East Whiteland Township police after he “spoke up on behalf of Miller.”
Falgiatore and Miller were also interviewed together on an October 2023 episode of Lancaster Patriot’s podcast that discussed Miller’s lawsuit against the district.
Despite his stated support, Falgliatore said he was not part of the lawsuit — he was not named as a plaintiff — and was supporting Miller because he believed his rights were violated.
