Police: South Union man charged with robbing sister of $40

A South Union man, who police said charged metal to his employer's business account and then sold it for scrap, was jailed Thursday on charges he burglarized his sister's house.

Matthew Filicky, 36, first tried to break into Dawn Filicky's North Union residence by crawling through her bedroom window at 11 p.m. Monday , but he was forced out when her dog bit him, police said.

He then went to a breezeway, where he used a metal pole to break a kitchen window to crawl inside, police said.

Filicky forced his sister, whose face was cut when he broke the window, to give him $40, police said. He fled, but his sister was too afraid to call police. An unidentified person reported the break-in to police some 12 hours later, according to a criminal complaint.

Filicky, 36, was arraigned Thursday morning before North Union District Judge Wendy Dennis on charges of burglary, criminal trespass, robbery, simple assault, reckless endangerment and theft. He is in the Fayette County jail on $25,000 bail.

In the unrelated case involving his former employer, Filicky is accused of charging $4,394 worth of copper and tools to Hopwood Enterprises' business account and then selling the metal to a scrap yard.

Police said Wendell Charles offered Filicky work doing “small jobs” at the Hopwood shop because Filicky told him that his girlfriend took everything he owned “and now he has nothing.”

Filicky showed up only six to eight times for work over several weeks. Charles later discovered Filicky had run up the charges at two Uniontown businesses in July and August.

Police said Filicky sold the metal to Metalico's scrap yard.

He was awaiting arraignment Thursday in that case on charges of theft by deception and identity theft.

Liz Zemba is a staff writer for Trib Total Media. She can be reached at 412-601-2166 or lzemba@tribweb.com.