WESTMORELAND COUNTY, Pa. -- In an unusual turn of events, charges have been filed against Sen. Bob Regola in connection with the death of his teenage neighbor, Louis Farrell.

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Regola was charged Tuesday with three counts each of perjury and false swearing and one count each of reckless endangerment and illegal possession of a weapon by a minor. The perjury and weapons charges are felonies.

If Regola is found guilty of perjury, he would automatically lose his Senate seat at sentencing, because the state constitution bars someone convicted of perjury from holding public office.

Farrell, 14, was found dead on July 22 with Regola's gun lying nearby. Police said Regola was in Harrisburg when the shooting death occurred behind his Hempfield Township home.

Regola did not respond to questions on Tuesday, except to say that he was waiting to talk to his attorney.

The criminal complaint says Regola allegedly let his teenage son, Bobby, keep the gun in his room before the shooting.

At an inquest hearing last month, the Westmoreland County coroner ruled the death a suicide, saying no charges should be filed.

Regola said neither he nor Bobby had anything to do with the shooting of Farrell, who was friends with Bobby Regola.

The Regolas' attorney said the senator's gun was stored at home in accordance with state law.

But during the inquest hearing, an officer investigating the case said he doesn't believe Regola's insistence under oath that the senator kept the gun in his own room and not in the room of his son.

"My finding is that the gun was entrusted to Bobby, and that Louis Farrell took the gun from Bobby's room," said inquest hearing officer Thomas Farrell, who is not related to Louis Farrell.

At the inquest, an attorney for Louis Farrell's family said some charges should be filed against Regola.

"Based on that analysis, gun charges against the senator should be brought," said Farrell family attorney Jon Perry. "They should have been brought seven months ago. And now we have a finding by inquest that the senator was reckless with his gun, and that the gun was used to end Louie's life, and I have yet to hear any responsibility level of remorse on the senator for those actions."

At the inquest, two state troopers testified that the senator told them the gun had been kept in Bobby's room until a couple of months before the shooting.

A friend of both boys had testified that Bobby Regola pulled the gun from a case beneath the nightstand in his bedroom a year or two before the shooting, and showed him and Farrell how to load it.

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