Italian-American cultural group to honor Moschetta
The Italian-American Cultural and Heritage Society of Washington County will present its Distinguished Citizen Award to Joseph Paoly Moschetta at its annual banquet May 17 at the Hilton Garden Inn at Southpointe.
The award is presented to an individual who not only has excelled professionally, but also has demonstrated extraordinary commitment to help others through volunteer efforts and community service.
Joseph Paoly Moschetta was born Aug. 18, 1937, a second-generation Italian-American, to John J. Moschetta, an attorney in Washington County, and Elizabeth Paoly Moschetta, a title searcher. Both paternal and maternal grandparents emigrated from Italy. The Moschetta side was from Taranta Peligna, Chieti, Abruzzo, and the Paoly side was from Tyrol.
Moschetta is a graduate of Waynesburg College and West Virginia University School of Law. Before his admission to practice law, he served in the U.S. military with the 630th Transportation Company.
His legal career includes serving as the first public defender of Washington County as well as a Common Pleas Trial Judge in Washington County. His private law practice is national in scope and focuses on admiralty and maritime litigation. However, he has always prided himself on representing the “underdog.”
Moschetta has served as president of the Washington County Bar Association, Western Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers and the Academy of Trial Lawyers of Washington County, as well as a governor of the American Association of Trial Lawyers. He also has received, among others, the Distinguished Service Award and the Professionalism Award of the Washington County Bar Association and the Milton D. Rosenberg Award of the Pennsylvania Trial Lawyers Association.
His public service has included serving on the board of directors of Craig House School for Children (now the Watson Institute) and the Washington County Mental Health/Mental Retardation Center, and as president of the Southwestern Pennsylvania Legal Services, an organization that provides free legal services for low-income citizens in Washington, Greene, Fayette and Somerset counties.
Moschetta is married to Judith Kinick Moschetta, formerly a professor at Washington & Jefferson College, and they have three children, Christopher, Stephen, an attorney with whom he practices law, and Nicole Moschetta Crofford, an attorney and legal clerk for Federal District Judge Arthur Schwab.
Those who would like to attend the banquet are asked to call Jack Barcelona at 724-483-2380.