Click here to subscribe today or Login.
PLAINS TWP. — Republican Stefanie Salavantis has won a second term as Luzerne County District Attorney.
Salavantis, 33, secured some 63 percent of votes county wide in Tuesday’s general election to Democratic challenger Vito DeLuca’s 37 percent, according to the Luzerne County Bureau of Elections.
“We were very different in our approaches, but we both have the same goal in mind,” Salavantis said. “We both grew up in Luzerne County and we want the best for it.”
Salavantis had claimed 60 percent of the vote with 125 precincts reporting just before 10 p.m. when DeLuca conceded the race in a text message to the incumbent.
In a phone interview with the Times Leader, DeLuca praised the largely positive tone of Salavantis’s campaign — an approach she said she believes resonated with voters “tired of negativity” — and wished his opponent the best in her second term.
“She ran a great campaign, she deserves the victory. I know she worked very hard,” he said. “I look forward to what she’ll be able to do in the next four years.”
In a speech to supporters gathered at the Woodlands, Salavantis credited the victory in large part to her team of prosecutors and investigators, who she said have “fought tooth and nail” against crime in the county.
“We will not give up the fight,” she said.
The election bureau reported voter turnout of about 28 percent, with more than 53,000 ballots cast,
Salavantis spent more than $102,000 between June and October in her bid for reelection, with more than half of the sum going to local television and radio stations.
Long on the defensive, she campaigned heavily on her record before fortifying her media blitz with a handful of ads in the race’s waning weeks criticizing DeLuca’s history as a criminal defense attorney.
She championed the February double-murder conviction of Hugo Selenski as one of her administration’s proudest achievements.
After the case wound through the court system for some 12 years, prosecutors under Salavantis managed to secure a pair of first-degree murder convictions against Selenski.
For the May 2002 killings of Michael J. Kerkowski and his girlfriend Tammy Lynn Fassett, Selenski is serving two consecutive life sentences.
Salavantis also touted the 2014 passage of Kevin’s Law as another major accomplishment.
Inspired in large part by the December 2012 hit-and-run death of 5-year-old Kevin Miller, of Dallas, “Kevin’s Law” increased the minimum prison sentence for leaving the scene of an accident involving death from one year to three years.
Salavantis, joined by other members of her office, came together with Kevin’s family in calling for the law change.
DeLuca, by contrast, has hurled accusations of corruption and incompetence at Salavantis and her administration since he ran unopposed in the primary election.
Spending more than $25,000 in the months after the primary, his campaign ads touted his two-plus decades of experience as a trial attorney, criticizing Salavantis for her lack of courtroom experience and taking issue with a number of DUI cases dismissed under Salavantis.
He also made issues of the 13 homicides which occurred under Salavantis and have not been charged yet.
Salavantis meanwhile boasted a 100-percent conviction rate in homicide trials.
Earlier in the election season, DeLuca along with Republican city mayoral candidate Frank Sorick flung allegations of misuse of public resources at Salavantis, claiming she directed an employee in her office to retrieve case files as campaign research against DeLuca.
In a meeting with the Times Leader opinion board, he DeLuca called Salavantis as district attorney “insulting.”
A more recent talking point involved DeLuca alleging Salavantis refused to debate him.
Salavantis deflected the accusations both in local media and social media.
The job is expected to pay about $178,000 in 2016.
