Friends of Delco man fatally shot by neighbor fume over plea to lesser charges

For weeks, Andrew Iavarone has stayed in his Delaware County home with his family, prisoners to the coronavirus pandemic. He’s spent much of that time in isolation wondering why the man who killed his son, Joseph, has been allowed to do the same after months in a jail cell.

“It’s a hard thing to live with right now,” Iavarone said. “To me, this was murder. Joe’s punishment was being shot and killed, and what’s this guy’s punishment? To go home to his family?”

John Ballas, 50, shot Joseph Iavarone, 44, once in the head last Memorial Day after an argument. Initially charged with first- and third-degree murder, Ballas sat in the county jail for months, denied bail as his case worked its way through the court system.

But on March 23, as the Delaware County Courthouse was shuttered except for a few emergency functions, Ballas, of Aston, quietly pleaded guilty to involuntary manslaughter, a significantly less serious charge than those he originally faced. He was released on unsecured bail the same day, and is free until his June sentencing.

Now, Iavarone’s friends and family are fuming at that outcome, frustrated at its timing and leniency. County prosecutors, meanwhile, defend the decision as appropriate, if not difficult, given the facts of the case.

District Attorney Jack Stollsteimer said in an interview this week that the prosecutors didn’t think they would be able to successfully argue at trial that Ballas acted with malice and therefore was guilty of murder.

Stollsteimer said that decision was made after senior staff members in his office reviewed the case. He called involuntary manslaughter “the most just charge.”

“We are prioritizing gun cases, and every gun case that comes into the office is given a special look,” Stollsteimer said. “In this case, veteran prosecutors in our office reviewed it and found we could not sustain the charges.”

Ballas’ attorney, Mark Phillip Much, did not return a request for comment Tuesday. At Ballas’ preliminary hearing in July, Much argued that the murder charge was not appropriate and said Ballas had acted in self-defense.

“This man came to my client’s home at 3 a.m. screaming, yelling, and damaging his property,” he said. “There was no specific intent to kill.”

The gunfire came at the height of an argument between the two men, sparked when police say Iavarone walked the few yards separating his front door from Ballas’ and started screaming, demanding to see Ballas’ son.

Ballas threatened to shoot Iavarone if he didn’t leave, and followed through on that threat amid protests from Iavarone, according to an affidavit of probable cause for Ballas’ arrest.

Ballas’ wife had called 911 to report that someone had broken a flowerpot on her property, police said. She later told police that after making that call, she and Ballas were inside their house when they heard Iavarone continue to scream outside, and that Ballas went to retrieve a .38-caliber handgun from his closet. Ballas only fired the weapon, he told officers, after Iavarone “charged” at him on his front lawn.

The crime stuck with David Bytheway, a longtime friend of Iavarone.

“There was no reason to get a gun, load a gun, threaten to shoot him, and then shoot him,” Bytheway said. “That’s thought out. That’s a process there, that’s not impulse.”

He argued that if Ballas truly felt threatened, he should have stayed inside his home and waited for the police to arrive. And he worries that with this guilty plea, the full scope of the fatal encounter will never be revealed.

“I really wanted a trial, not for a specific outcome, but just to get the story,” Bytheway said. “There’s two people who know what happened that night, and now the only one who can talk never will.”