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WILKES-BARRE — Luzerne County District Attorney hopeful Vito DeLuca has accused his opponent of dodging court appearances and says now she’s dodging a debate.

DeLuca, a Democrat, said in a news release Wednesday he has been requesting a debate with incumbent DA Stefanie Salavantis “for weeks now” through the League of Women Voters of the Wilkes-Barre Area to no avail.

“She always says she has to check her schedule,” DeLuca said of the Republican prosecutor. “Time is running short.”

Not true, says Salavantis.

“Defense attorney Vito DeLuca’s most recent negative attack against me is disappointing and riddled with deceptions and inaccurate information,” she said.

According to Salavantis’s camp, neither she nor her campaign has received a debate request from DeLuca, and the only date discussed so far conflicted with an event at which Salavantis was speaking.

She said her campaign has been in contact with the LWV about other dates.

A message left with the LWV Wednesday was not immediately returned.

DeLuca said he is willing to debate Salavantis “anytime, anywhere and in whatever format she would like,” suggesting they should have multiple debates in multiple venues. He said the DA owes it to county voters to defend “what she deems to be her record.”

Issues he says he’s interested in discussing include a “dramatic spike” in crime and the dismissal of more than three dozen DUI cases he claims have occurred during Salavantis’s tenure.

“This is an inexperienced attorney who has dodged appearing in court to handle so much as a traffic ticket, I can only believe that she thinks she could dodge a debate with me as well,” he said.

Salavantis in her statement defended her record, saying her administration has collaborated with law enforcement to better utilize county resources, saving in the last four years, she says, more than $250,000 in taxpayer dollars.

“I had hoped the voters could have been treated to a real discussion of ideas to move Luzerne County forward, but by his recent actions he seems more interested in mudslinging than talking about issues that matter,” she said.

DeLuca’s release is the second attack on Salavantis’s campaign in the last two weeks. Last Wednesday, DeLuca along with Republican city mayoral candidate Frank Sorick accused Salavantis of using public resources to perform campaign research.

The pair said Salavantis ordered her staff to pull files related to an animal cruelty case DeLuca defended after DeLuca received a campaign endorsement from an animal rights group.

Salavantis denied the allegations, saying her office accessed the files as reference to another animal cruelty case.

DeLuca
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_DeLuca_Vito_preferred_mug_toned.jpg.optimal.jpgDeLuca

Salavantis
https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2015/10/web1_pressconference02.jpg.optimal.jpgSalavantis

By James O’Malley

[email protected]

Reach James O’Malley at 570-991-6390 or on Twitter @TL_omalley.