Braddock Hills resident William Lekovitch said he has not given up running for the office of magisterial district judge. He's just postponed it.

Lekovitch, who works for the Port Authority and is a former Braddock Hills police officer and acting chief, withdrew his nomination petitions to run for Rankin district judge last week.

Around the same time, just before an Allegheny County Common Pleas judge was to determine the validity of those petitions, incumbent Ross C. Cioppa pulled his objections to them.

Lekovitch, 43, said his second thoughts grew out of a mutual agreement.

In an electronic message sent to the Post-Gazette Friday, Lekovitch said, "I sat down with Judge Cioppa ... and we came to an understanding. I asked the judge how old he was and if this would be his last term of office due to reaching the maximum age allowed, [70] and he assured me it would be."

Lekovitch said that information prompted him to withdraw his nomination petitions.

"I realized that [Cioppa] needed to get in this term so that he would be eligible to receive his pension," he wrote. "With that being said, I have withdrawn my petitions and have decided to hold off running for the office till Judge Cioppa's term expires."

Cioppa's attorney, Phillip DiLucente, said the district judge was pleased with Lekovitch's decision.

"We are happy ... but he certainly was a formidable opponent," DiLucente said

The Lekovitch family is long-established in the Braddock/Braddock Hills/Rankin area. Lekovitch's father, Walter, served as Rankin police chief in the 1980s. His mother, June, is the Rankin tax collector.

Additionally, DiLucente agreed that Cioppa, 64, will reach the age limit for the public office he holds by 2011. If Cioppa wins again in May, DiLucente said, he plans to retire that year.

Still, DiLucente said he had not known why Lekovitch agreed to drop the race, but added that, "After retiring, incumbents can certainly put their support to whomever they choose."

Cioppa, who spoke in an interview after DiLucente had, said he was not committed to endorsing Lekovitch in 2011.

"That's six years off," he said. "You never know what may happen."