County hires new attorneys
WAYNESBURG – A new assistant district attorney and new assistant public defender were hired Thursday at a meeting of the Greene County salary board.
The board voted to hire Patrick Fitch as an assistance district attorney at a salary of $44,690 and Kimberly Ann Furmanek as an assistant public defender at a salary of $42,733.
Fitch, who is now an assistant public defender, is transferring to the district attorney’s office. Furmanek, now a contract employee in the public defender’s office, was hired to a full-time position.
Fitch has been with the public defender’s office since February 2014. He received a bachelor’s degree from Waynesburg College and is a 1995 graduate of the Ohio Northern University School of Law.
Fitch served with the U.S. Secret Service from 1997 to 2013. He started as a special agent in the Philadelphia Field Office investigating counterfeiting crimes, bank fraud, check fraud and protective intelligence cases. Following the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, he was assigned to protect President George W. Bush, a position he held for four years.
Fitch also worked in the Secret Service’s Office of the Chief Counsel as an agent/attorney and later was assigned to President Barack Obama as assistant special agent in charge.
He finished his Secret Service career in the Office of Protective Operations in Washington, D.C.
“I’m looking forward to the challenges and the opportunity of serving with the district attorney’s office,” Fitch said.
Fitch will begin his duties in the district attorney’s office Monday. As an assistant district attorney, he said, he will not be able to be involved in cases on which he has participated in while a public defender.
Furmanek has been with the public defenders’ office since January. She graduated from Washington and Jefferson College and received her law degree in 2013 from Widener University.
Furmanek briefly interned with the district attorney’s office after law school and has a private practice.
She was inspired to become an attorney by the brutal murder of her mother, Rhonda Furmanek, in December 1994, when Kimberly was 7 years old.
Her stepfather, Edward Patterson, and his friend, John ‘Jo Jo’ Lavigne, were later convicted by a Greene County jury of first degree murder and are serving life sentences. Patterson’s girlfriend, Tammy Jones, who cooperated with authorities, pled guilty and was sentenced to 8 to 20 years in prison.
Furmanek, who was in the courtroom during the trial, said she has always has wanted to make a difference, and at first, wanted to be prosecutor.
“I am an advocate for women and against domestic violence. I represent children and families in trouble,” she said. “And now, yes, I do represent poor people accused of crime who deserve exoneration or a lesser degree of culpability.”
Furmanek will assume her full-time position Aug. 1.