Would you like a peek inside what really happens on Capitol Hill? Or a preview of how an Obama White House would function? May we introduce you to Modern Political Corruption 101, a primer on American politics? What you’re about to read is not fiction from a dime-store pulp novel. Instead, what follows are extracts from the Grand Jury Presentment this past week in Harrisburg, the state capital of Pennsylvania. Locally it is called "Bonusgate." Although the indictment details Pennsylvania politics, anyone seasoned in politics knows this Grand Jury indictment could be easily be from a half-dozen other states as well as the District of Columbia.
Obviously, this is only a Grand Jury indictment. The people accused are presumed innocent unless and until proven guilty in a court of law. An indictment is only the prosecutor’s side of the story. The defense has yet the opportunity to present their version. Attorneys for the three major defendants, the former Pennsylvania House Democratic Whip, State Rep. Michael Veon, incumbent State Rep. Sean Ramaley, and Michael Manzo, the former chief of staff to the House Democratic Leader, have asserted their clients’ innocence. Twelve defendants were indicted, including Manzo’s wife.
But, if what the Grand Jury reports is proven in court, the breath and scope of political corruption are more than mind-boggling. It rises to the judicial standard of being "shocking to the conscience." The now-former House Democratic Whip, according to the indictment, required every public employee to do campaign work. And then they got paid bonuses, at taxpayer expense, for working on political campaigns. Yes, you too can go to work for the Pennsylvania House of Representatives so you can work reelecting the incumbents. And the taxpayers will award you bonuses for campaigning for the House Members. On top of that, the taxpayers will even reimburse you for your mileage to drive throughout the state to campaign.
But wait, it gets better! The former chief of staff to the House Democratic Leader puts his mistress, a law school coed, on the public payroll by creating an imaginary position, just so she can be available for a "rump in the hay" whenever he’s in town. Another Democratic legislator, upon winning the primary, gets a ghost job inside from the House Democratic Whip, sits in his district office, simply to do campaign work. Hundreds, not a couple or a dozen, but hundreds of House Democratic employees are sent, at taxpayers’ expense, to do campaign work throughout the state. Senior House staff members spend all day, every day, fund raising out of the State Capitol Building. They make phone calls, compile lists, use taxpayer copiers and ink and paper to print fund-raising solicitations. Then have taxpayers pay for the postage!
But it doesn’t stop there. Apparently Superman works for the Pennsylvania House. While being paid a full-time salary of $126,204 plus a $14,815 bonus for a full-time job, Veon’s chief of staff was also able to maintain a full-time law practice, billing his clients for time in the law office performing their work all while he was in the Capitol Building working for the taxpayers. Being in two places at the same time? Unbelievable. Don’t you wish you could do that?
The sum is not paltry. We’re not talking about an occasional phone call inside the Capitol office. We’re talking about a "culture of corruption" illegally using millions and millions of taxpayer’s money, resources, offices, copier machines, and employee’s time for political campaign purposes. We’re talking about a Representative’s district office being used relatively full time for campaign and political purposes. At the moment, the tab to pay for public employees to perform campaigning, fund raising and political work appear to be $3.6 million, and this is only in bonuses. The expense of using Capitol Building offices, taxpayer-funded high-speed copiers, ink and toner cartridges, paper, phone lines, message units could add another million stolen from the public treasury.
According to the Pennsylvania Attorney General, "the Harrisburg grand jury found that the award of bonuses was only one facet of the effort to use employee taxpayer funds and resources for campaign purposes. Additionally, the grand jury found that the actual diversion of resources and employees to campaigns and political endeavors was of no less importance. The theft of taxpayers' funds and resources was extensive and ranged from the obvious - directing public employees to conduct campaign work while paid by the taxpayers, to the subtle - issuing taxpayer-paid contracts for campaign work disguised as legitimate legislative work."
What is even more disturbing to the Attorney General is that this all occurred right under his nose while he was prosecuting a Republican legislator in 2004 and 2005 for the exact same thing. "[T]he investigation, prosecution, conviction and prison sentence of former Republican State Representative in 2004 and 2005 by the Attorney General’s Office for using his legislative staff for campaign and fundraising purposes should have put legislative leaders and their staffs on notice that the Attorney General's office and the courts take a stern view of such illegal activity. * * * as the Pennsylvania Superior Court in its Habay decision * * * stated that an elected representative is "not allowed to direct state paid employees under his authority to conduct campaigning or fundraising, during state paid time, for his personal benefit." The court said such actions secure "a private monetary advantage" for an elected representative because, "by having state employees work for him on his campaign or fund-raising task while they were being paid by the state, he obtained the benefit of free campaign work funded by the taxpayers."
A State House Candidate Gets Ghost Job to Assure He Wins Election
In 2004, Sean Ramaley left his job as a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Labor to run for the Pennsylvania House Seat. After Ramaley won the Democratic Party primary, which in that part of Pennsylvania is tantamount to election, the powerful House Democratic Whip Michael Veon offered Ramaley a position as a legislative assistant in Veon’s district office. Ramaley started on June 25, 2004. However, the grand jury found that "Veon’s hiring of Ramaley was never intended to serve his constituents, but was purely a ‘no-work job’ which allowed Ramaley to run his campaign directly from Veon's taxpayer-funded district office with the assistance and direction of Veon's taxpayer paid political operatives."
The grand jury heard took testimony from one of Veon's political operatives assigned to work with Ramaley. The campaign aide testified that he and Ramaley typically began their campaign work around 9:00 A.M. making fundraising telephone calls in Veon’s taxpayer-funded district office. Then they would knock on doors until dark and then return to Whip’s district office to compile voter data for the remainder of each day. Ramaley used Veon's district office equipment, including the computers, phones, printers and copier.
And on top of this, Ramaley is not only an attorney at law, but his wife is an assistant District Attorney in Allegheny County. Come on now!
Putting a Mistress on the Payroll
The grand jury found that in the summer of 2004, the powerful chief of staff to the House Democratic Leader, Michael Manzo, who worked part and parcel with House Democratic Whip Veon to promote the widespread culture of corruption, met an attractive, 21-year-old blonde beauty queen, Angela Bertugli. After a couple of drinks they allegedly "did it" in his car. As a reward, Manzo created, out of thin-air and without anyone’s authorization, a taxpayer-funded position in charge of the "Pittsburgh Field Office" for the newly formed "House Allegheny County Delegation." Mind you, not a single Representative from the Allegheny County delegation was aware of this office, located in downtown Pittsburgh above a cigar store. Of course, one must ask, as the Grand Jury asked, why they would even need such an office, when all had their own district offices. The mistress was paid $21,091 to do her college homework, campaign work, or to simply sit around and wait for Chief of Staff Manzo whenever he was in Pittsburgh, so they could a rump in the hay. The sex must have been good, because she got a pay raise to $29,103, which included full healthcare and other benefits. When the mistress got admitted to a law school in Harrisburg, Manzo arranged for her to be transferred to the "Democratic Caucus Legislative Research Office."
Witnesses and evidence not only corroborated the ghost job, but clearly demonstrate in Harrisburg’s culture of corruption, you simply look the other way. According to the Grand Jury, a senior assistant to the House Democratic Leader testified that: "We don't know who works there and I don't know what is going on out there. I don't want to know, but it just didn't seem kosher to me. So, I never asked anybody about it after that. I just let it drop." Another Democratic House employee testified: "I never knew anybody who interacted with Angela Bertugli. She - we figured it was a favor. I think she went to college in Pittsburgh, but they gave her the job as a favor."
In Part Two of Modern Political Corruption 101, we will report on the elaborate accounting and monitoring of public employees’ campaign performance to determine how much bonus money they got in their public paycheck, and how the employees were paid to "go fishing" at taxpayers’ expense. And we will detail how the Pennsylvania taxpayers were lucky to employ Superman, able to do work in two different offices at the same time. |