Laurels & lances: Celebrating concerts, condemning crime

Laurel: To a real comeback. Pittsburgh has always been a place to catch some truly amazing music — whether you are talking about at a local bar or small venue or in a traveling theater production. But is there anything like a big stadium show? There really isn’t.

And yet, from the first days of the coronavirus pandemic, it seemed reasonable to wonder whether anything like those huge rock concerts would come back.

They did. Over the course of four days, PNC Park was the scene of three giant concerts. It started with Billy Joel. The next night was an ’80s extravaganza with The Stadium Tour featuring Motley Crue, Def Leppard, Poison, and Joan Jett and the Blackhearts. It all wrapped up with Metallica on Sunday.

There was no better way to show that the city and the music scene have survived. Keep rocking, Pittsburgh.

Lance: To a pathetic attempt. Some people looked at the pandemic as not something to endure or a reason to pull together but as an opportunity for theft.

On Tuesday, Randy Frasinelli, 66, of Scott pleaded guilty to bank fraud and money laundering. Sentencing will happen in December and could net him more than six years behind bars.

One could argue that’s nowhere near enough. Frasinelli’s crimes included fraudulently applying for multiple Paycheck Protection Program loans totaling $3.8 million. Yes, he has to pay restitution. Yes, he has to forfeit the six luxury cars he bought and turn over things like jewelry and artwork and surrender investment accounts filled with the proceeds of his fraud.

But that doesn’t do anything for the small businesses that the PPP was meant to help. Real businesses — Frasinelli’s were fake — closed their doors during pandemic shutdowns. People who were supposed to get the paychecks from that money went on unemployment instead, so his crimes cost taxpayers twice.

White collar money crimes often are seen as more victimless than something that happens at the point of a knife or the muzzle. They aren’t. Sentencing should reflect that. And speaking of that…

Lance: To a dirty crime. Former Pittsburgh Water and Sewer Authority supervisor Glenn Lijewski of Brookline was sentenced in federal court to three years’ probation.

Lijewski pleaded guilty in April to dumping sludge from the Aspinwall treatment facility into the Allegheny River.

It was part of a pattern of behavior Lijewski and other employees and supervisors at PWSA engaged in over years. Prosecutors say the sludge from the drinking water treatment process was dumped from 2010 to 2017. It was supposed to be treated by ALCOSAN instead. Documents were falsified to cover up the the crime.

PWSA pleaded guilty in January 2021 and agreed to a $500,000 self-funded compliance program and received three years’ probation — although how a water authority serves a criminal probation sentence isn’t exactly the same way Lijewski will. Another supervisor is set for sentencing after pleading to conspiracy.

Crimes that affect the community are every bit as dangerous and destructive as crimes that affect property or lives because they do affect property and lives.