A state lawmaker, a former legislative leader and 10 other people connected to the state House Democratic caucus were charged Thursday over allegations that millions of taxpayer dollars were illegally siphoned to underwrite political campaigns.
Pennsylvania prosecutors filed the theft, conflict of interest and conspiracy charges after grand jurors found that legislative employees got taxpayer-funded bonuses for doing campaign work; state computers and equipment were commandeered for political campaigning; and public contracts were issued for partisan purposes. Some of the bonuses issued in 2005 and 2006 were well over $20,000.
It's a very sad day in Pennsylvania, Attorney General Tom Corbett said in announcing the charges.
Corbett, a Republican and potential 2010 gubernatorial candidate, said more charges are expected. He declined to say whether the investigation has uncovered evidence of similar illegal acts within the House Republican, Senate Republican or Senate Democratic caucuses.
Those charged include former Democratic Whip Mike Veon; Rep. Sean Ramaley, a Beaver County Democrat currently running for state Senate; and several key caucus staffers or former staffers, including Michael Manzo, forced out in November as chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese.
Corbett said the defendants were expected to turn themselves in to a magistrate Friday. The four current staffers charged were suspended Thursday without pay or benefits, said Bob Caton, spokesman for House Majority Whip Keith McCall.
Robert G. Del Greco Jr., Veon's lawyer, said Thursday that Veon has consistently asserted his innocence.
Ramaley's lawyer, Philip Ignelzi, said his client denies the charges and did his job. He did what he was required to do, he did what he was asked to do.
Manzo's lawyer, Jim Eisenhower, did not return a phone message seeking comment late Thursday.
Investigations by grand juries in Harrisburg and Pittsburgh were initiated after The Patriot-News of Harrisburg reported in January 2007 that secretive legislative bonuses for meritorious or bonus pay were being given out.
Republicans and Democrats in the House and Senate handed out nearly $4 million in bonuses to their employees in 2005 and 2006, with the largest chunk — more than half the total — paid by the House Democrats.
We have pushed this through fairly and as speedily as we can, Corbett said. We will continue to do that with the other three caucuses.
Letters to the recipients that bore DeWeese's signature instructed them to keep quiet about the supplemental payments. DeWeese has said he did not know about the letters or the scope of the bonuses. DeWeese was not charged, and Corbett declined to comment about him.
I feel searing disappointment over the actions of those I trusted, DeWeese said in a statement Thursday, yet I am also proud of the staff in our caucus who came forward and told the truth.
Several former caucus staffers charged, including Manzo, had been forced out by DeWeese late last year as a result of information that turned up in connection with the bonus investigation. Veon, DeWeese's former second-in-command and a legislator for 22 years, was voted out of office in 2006.
Among the allegations disclosed in the two lengthy grand jury presentments released to the public on Thursday:
• Veon for years ran a massive and primarily taxpayer-paid political fundraising operation from an office suite in the Capitol. The office raised campaign funds, booked event locations, designed menus and mailed out fundraiser invitations and campaign brochures.
• When Ramaley ran for the House in 2004, Veon hired him for a part-time, no-work legislative assistant job at his Beaver Falls district office, from which Ramaley campaigned.
• Manzo, whose wife also works for the House Democrats and faces charges in the case, carried on an affair with a woman that began when she was a female intern in 2004 and continued late into 2007. Manzo created a taxpayer-funded job for the woman in Pittsburgh, where she attended graduate school. Although most of the time she had no work to do, she was paid as much as $36,000 in one year.
• Veon used two public employees to take his and his wife's motorcycles to Sturgis, S.D., in 2004 so that the Veons could fly there and have the motorcycles waiting. The employees' travel expenses, nearly $1,500, were paid by taxpayers.
Veon faces the most counts — 59 — and according to Corbett could be sentenced to a maximum of 381 years in prison if convicted of all of them. Even the defendants facing the fewest counts, including Ramaley, could see a maximum 40-year sentence if convicted, the attorney general said.
__
On the Net:
Attorney general's news release: http://tinyurl.com/5mpalv
