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Teaching union history part of local Labor Day festival

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Police: Man mugged on W-B street

<p>HANOVER TWP. &#8212; A man with a lengthy record and wanted by federal and state authorities was captured Sunday living in the Lee Park high-rise apartment building on Lee Park Avenue, township police said.</p><p>Officers say Richard Wayne Mills, 60, was wanted by U.S. Marshals and Pennsylvania parole agents on parole violations stemming from assaulting a law enforcement officer and firearm offenses. He was captured when police investigated an incident in the high rise at about 7:20 p.m. and turned over to state parole agents.</p><p>Mills resided on the sixth floor of the building.</p><p>Court records say he served several years in state prison for a variety of criminal convictions in Luzerne County in 2009.</p><p>According to court records and Times Leader archives:</p><p>Mills was sentenced in August 2009 to six to 12 years in state prison on charges of aggravated assault, resisting arrest, flight to avoid prosecution, intimidation of a witness, criminal solicitation to intimidate a witness, robbery, burglary, illegal possession of a firearm, firearms not to be carried without a license and escape.</p><p>Those charges reflect three separate cases filed against Mills.</p><p>Mills was charged with assaulting then-Luzerne County Sheriff Michael Savokinas on Anthracite Street, Wilkes-Barre, in December 2008. Savokinas was conducting surveillance on a house knowing Mills was inside. Mills was being sought on a burglary charge when he was accused of forcing his way inside an Exeter business and stealing firearms and tools.</p><p>As Savokinas approached the house, Mills assaulted the sheriff and attempted to grab scissors during the fight, archives say.</p><p>Firearms and tools stolen during the burglary at the Exeter business were recovered in a vacant house on Luzerne Street, Wilkes-Barre.</p><p>Then while imprisoned at the Luzerne County Correctional Facility, Mills wrote letters to another person with instructions to intimidate a witness in the Exeter burglary case, court records say.</p><p>Mills wanted the other person to burn the witness&#8217; house and vandalize his vehicle.</p><p>In another incident, Mills suffered a gunshot wound to his leg as he robbed three people inside a house on High Street, Wilkes-Barre, in April 2006. Mills forced his way inside with a crowbar, grabbed a samurai sword off a wall and tried to rob two men and a woman.</p><p>The two men fled the house as the woman brandished a firearm and shot Mills in the leg, archives state.</p><p>Mills was also charged in November 2005 with hiding then-fugitive Sean Quinn. Quinn was wanted for escaping police custody in Old Forge by slipping out of handcuffs and fleeing in a police cruiser, according to Times Leader archives.</p><style>
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<div class="neFile"><img class="neImage" src="https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/web1_Richard-Wayne-Mills-1.jpg">
<div class="neCaption">Mills </div></div><div class="metaInfo"><photo0>https://www.timesleader.com/wp-content/uploads/2018/08/web1_Richard-Wayne-Mills-1.jpg</photo0><caption0>Mills </caption0><photoCredit0></photoCredit0></div></div>
<div class="metaInfo"><bylineMeta><p>By Ed Lewis</p><p>elewis@www.timesleader.com</p></bylineMeta></div>

Fugitive captured living in Hanover Township high rise