`i Want To Make The Best Of It.' 
Cougar Swimmer Leaves 
The Baseball Diamond 
For Life In The Wet Lane

Accident Victim Listed `critical'

By RICK ROGERS; Times Leader Staff Writer
 Saturday, January 04, 1997 &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;Page: 3A 





WILKES-BARRE -- A McAdoo man convicted of attempting to hire a hit man to
kill a witness was sentenced Friday to four to eight years in state prison. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 A jury convicted Frank Angelo Ciekalsky, 29, on Nov. 22 of soliciting
murder and conspiracy to commit murder. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; The jury found Ciekalsky guilty of trying to hire an undercover state
trooper to kill Joseph Sist, 31, Ciekalsky's lifelong friend. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Sist planned to testify that Ciekalsky ran over a Carbon County state
trooper in March 1995 with a four-wheel, all-terrain-vehicle. Ciekalsky was
subsequently convicted of that assault and was sentenced to five to 10 years
in state prison. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 "Your problems are drugs and alcohol. You just continue to do what you want
to do," Luzerne County Court of Common Pleas Michael Conahan told Ciekalsky on
Friday. "You don't want to change your lifestyle. This is not going to go on.
It's time for you to grow up." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Conahan, a former district justice from Hazleton, said he dealt with
Ciekalsky a number of times in the past. "This court has given you probation
and home confinement and nothing has worked." &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 The sentence Conahan handed down will run consecutively with his Carbon
County sentence. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 In a related hearing, Angela Norma Petrole, Ciekalsky's mother, who was
acquitted in conspiring to hire the hit man, is seeking $1,000 that was
impounded. The money was reportedly a down payment for the alleged planned
murder. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp; 
 Conahan said he would rule "shortly" whether Petrole, 49, would get the
money back. The Luzerne County District Attorney's Office opposes returning
the money. &nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;

Man Gets 4-8 Years In `hit Man' Plot Frank Ciekalsky, 29, Of Mcadoo On Nov. 22 Was Convicted Of Soliciting Murder And Conspiring To Commit Murder