Anti-Democracy Democrats facing Felony Charges

Attorney General Corbett announces charges in legislative bonus investigation - 12 suspects charged in 1st phase of the investigation

Click here to watch video of the news conference

HARRISBURG - As part of an ongoing public corruption investigation, agents from the Attorney General's Office today filed numerous theft charges, as well as criminal conspiracy and conflict of interest charges, against 12 suspects, including a state representative from Beaver County, a former House Democratic Minority Whip and four current House Democratic staffers. The investigation has uncovered the illegal use of millions of dollars in taxpayers' funds, resources and state employees for political campaign purposes.

Attorney General Tom Corbett said the charges are part of an ongoing grand jury probe into bonuses paid to employees of the Pennsylvania Legislature along with the use of state resources for political campaigns. (Read the Harrisburg Grand Jury Presentment - Read the Pittsburgh Grand Jury Presentment) Among those charged are former House Democratic Minority Whip Mike Veon, Michael Manzo, the former chief of staff to Pennsylvania Democratic House Majority Leader H. William DeWeese and Beaver County State Representative Sean Ramaley.

Mike VEON

Sean RAMALEY

Michael MANZO

Rachel MANZO

Scott BRUBAKER

Jennifer BRUBAKER

Brett COTT

Jeff FOREMAN

Annamarie PERRETTA-ROSEPINK

Stephen KEEFER

Patrick J. LAVELLE

Earl MOSLEY

Also charged are four current members of the House Democratic Caucus: Jeff Foreman, chief counsel to House Democratic Majority Whip Keith McCall and former Veon chief of staff; Rachel Manzo, executive director of the House Democratic Policy Committee and wife of Michael Manzo; Jennifer Brubaker, director of the Legislative Research Office for the House Democratic Caucus and Patrick Lavelle, a research analyst for the House Democratic Caucus.

Also charged are former House Democratic Caucus employees Scott Brubaker, the former director of staffing and administration for the House Democratic Caucus and husband of Jennifer Brubaker; Brett Cott, a former analyst on Veon's Capitol staff; Steven Keefer, the former director of information technology for the House Democratic Caucus; Earl Mosley, the former director of personnel for the House Democratic Caucus and Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink, a former legislative assistant and district chief of staff in Rep. Veon's Beaver County office

Corbett explained that his office initiated the investigation after a series of newspaper stories revealed that millions of dollars of taxpayer funded bonuses were paid to employees of the Pennsylvania Legislature.

As part of the investigation, Corbett said, agents and prosecutors from the Public Corruption Unit interviewed hundreds of individuals and reviewed thousands of documents and e-mails. Grand juries in Pittsburgh and Harrisburg heard testimony and reviewed extensive documentary evidence from numerous current and former House Democratic Caucus employees, attorney general agents and other witnesses.

The Pittsburgh grand jury began receiving testimony in June of 2007 regarding Veon's use of his district legislative office for political purposes and the Harrisburg grand jury began receiving testimony in August of 2007.

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.

The Habay Precedent
Corbett said the investigation, prosecution, conviction and prison sentence of former Republican Representative Jeff Habay 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.

Corbett said the grand jury used the guidance of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in its Habay decision, when the Court stated that an elected representative is "not allowed to direct state paid employees under his authority to conduct campaign and or fundraising related work, 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 and or fundraising task while they were being paid by the state, he obtained the benefit of free campaign work funded by the taxpayers."

As part of the investigation, Corbett said, on Aug. 23, 2007, attorney general agents executed a search warrant on the Democratic Legislative Research Office and seized 20 boxes, the contents of which were reviewed by the grand jury. Corbett noted that the search warrant was executed after his agents obtained evidence that House Democratic staffers were destroying the contents of boxes.

Corbett said the grand juries heard former staffers and employees of Veon, the minority whip for the House Democratic Caucus from 1998 through 2006, who described a culture of employing taxpayer funding and resources for campaign purposes.

The grand jury found that to be an employee on Veon's staff, campaign work was expected. The illegal campaign work was directed by Veon's district chief of staff Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink in Beaver County and by Jeff Foreman in Harrisburg.

Brett Cott's title on Veon's staff was policy analyst, but according to numerous witnesses he was hired because of his campaign skills and was one of the lead promoters of the culture of using taxpayer funds for campaign purposes.

The grand jury also found that Michael Manzo, who was DeWeese's chief of staff, directly coordinated with Veon on the illegal use of taxpayer funds and resources.

2004 Election of Sean Ramaley
In 2004, when Ramaley ran for the 16th legislative district, which includes parts of Beaver and Allegheny counties, he left his job as a lawyer with the U.S. Department of Labor. After Ramaley won the Democratic Party primary, Veon offered him a position as a legislative assistant in his Beaver Falls district office. Ramaley started on June 25, 2004.

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 testimony from one of Veon's political operatives assigned to work with Ramaley, stating that he and Ramaley typically began their campaign work around 9 a.m. by making fundraising telephone calls in an office they shared at Veon's Beaver Falls taxpayer-funded district office. After fundraising calls, they knocked on doors until dark and followed-up by compiling voter data in Veon's district office for the remainder of each day. Ramaley used Veon's district office equipment, including the computers, phones, printers and copier.

The grand jury found that Ramaley, in agreement with Veon, used taxpayer funded resources for campaign purposes, accepted a salary as a taxpayer funded legislative assistant in Veon's office, provided no work in return for the benefit of the people of Pennsylvania but instead, used the job as a taxpayer-funded base of operations for his own political campaign.

The Birth of the Illegal Bonus Program
The grand jury found that in 2004, Veon and Manzo directed Eric Webb, a House Democratic Caucus employee, to maintain a list of all House Democratic Caucus employees who assisted with political and campaign related work.

Webb was directed to track campaign work performed by "volunteers" in the field and also to track all manner of other campaign work as directed by Veon, Manzo and others. Webb was instructed to classify the type of work performed and also to monitor and critique the efforts and time committed by the House Democratic Caucus employees. Webb's list formed the basis of who would receive taxpayer bonuses.

The grand jury found that the political culture created by Veon consistently sought to promote and reward, with taxpayer monies, those staffers engaged in political endeavors and campaign work, as opposed to those engaged solely in work on behalf of the taxpayers, such as legislative and constituent work.

Webb, who testified before the grand jury under a grant of immunity, stated that it was clearly understood by all of these employees that campaign work was part of their public employment and not something done after work hours or on personal time. Webb also detailed to the grand jury how the "volunteer" list that he maintained was specifically designed to act as a foundation for an "incentive" structure to entice House Democratic Caucus employees to commit greater efforts and time on political endeavors and campaigns.

The grand jury found that Webb's 2004 list cataloged 458 House Democratic Caucus employees by using a computer program that noted the various efforts and campaign activities of the "volunteers." The 2004 list, like all subsequent lists, detailed the type and amount of campaign work performed by public employees.

Webb's 2004 list cataloged, to name a few, efforts such as: the number of days each employee spent on campaigns or campaign activities; whether employees worked on the special election in the 109th Legislative District; assisted on the petition challenge to Green Party Presidential candidate Ralph Nader; conducted opposition research; circulated nominating petitions; made campaign contributions to DeWeese, Veon or the House Democratic Campaign Committee and, if so, the amount contributed. The list also noted whether employees worked on overnight trips, when they worked on day trips and whether they worked on Election Day.

The grand jury found not a single entry on Webb's 2004 list, or his lists for the following years, for legitimate legislative work or constituent services. Webb testified that such work was completely irrelevant to the purpose of the list or to those who directed its creation.

Following the 2004 general election, at Michael Manzo's request, Webb provided a breakdown of those who excelled on the selected campaigns and political endeavors. Webb provided a list of those who he described as "superstars" and forwarded it to Michael Manzo and Veon. The grand jury found that, subsequently, a number of other names were added, such as those individuals who worked in Veon's Harrisburg and district offices. After Webb complied, highlighting those who had done the most, Manzo told Webb that these people were going to receive an award for their campaign efforts. In 2004, a total of $188,800 of taxpayer funds was paid to these staffers as a reward for their participation in political endeavors and campaign work.

2005 Bonuses
The grand jury found that Webb continued the tracking of "volunteers" by creating a new list in 2005. Webb created new rankings of Rock Stars, Good, and OK for the employees on his list. The list revolved largely around two special elections, one held in July of 2005 in a legislative district in the Allentown area between Linda Minger and Karen Beyer and another in a legislative district in Allegheny County.

The grand jury heard numerous witnesses testify that by the time of the Minger - Beyer special election in July of 2005, the word had spread among House Democratic Caucus employees that working on campaigns was the best method to obtain a bonus.

The grand jury found that in 2005, despite being an off-year for legislative elections, the House Democratic Caucus produced more volunteers than it had in the 2004 legislative election year. For example, the Minger-Beyer race alone drew more than 170 "volunteers" from the House Democratic Caucus.

More than $106,000 in taxpayer funded bonus checks were issued to all the employees on Webb's list who performed campaign work in 2005. An additional $61,500 in taxpayer funds was paid in December 2005 in the form of "executive bonuses" to those supervisors in the House Democratic Caucus who were most intimately involved in the conducting and promoting of campaign work.

Gone Fishing
The grand jury heard testimony from a Democratic House staffer who testified about his understanding that the bonuses were tied directly to campaign work. He stated that in 2005 there was an extremely large push to get volunteers to go to Allentown to work the special election on behalf of Linda Minger, the Democratic candidate.

The House staffer testified that he traveled to the Minger campaign office with two other House employees who brought their fishing gear. Upon their arrival, they were given campaign literature and directed to distribute it. Instead, they went to breakfast, threw away the campaign literature and went fishing. About a month later, the three employees got identical $250 bonuses. The employee stated to the grand jury that, "we joked when we got the bonuses - we're not idiots - we figured out what it was for, we all joked that we are professional fishermen now."

2006 Bonuses
The election year of 2006 would prove to be the largest effort yet undertaken as part of the incentive scheme. Eric Webb testified that in 2006 the pay raise vote had "changed the whole map." He testified that there were many "more seats in play" requiring more volunteers to do everything from opposition research to campaign work in the field. It was also a unique year because both caucus leaders, Veon and DeWeese, had serious challengers. As a result of these factors, the campaign efforts started in earnest very early in the year.

Whether measured by the effort expended in tracking the campaign work of caucus employees, the number of bonus recipients or the dollar amounts expended on bonuses, 2006 far exceeded the prior years. Webb told the grand jury that after everyone who worked on the special election in 2005 got bonuses, "it became very apparent" to the caucus employees that "if they volunteer, they get a bonus." As a result, when the election cycle of 2006 started, Webb stated: "more and more people are volunteering that I haven't seen before because of the incentive structure."

By the end of 2006, two waves of bonuses had been issued for campaign work - one in August and one at the end of the year. A total of $1,285,250 was paid in public funds for secret bonuses in 2006.

The grand jury found that around August or September 2006, Michael Manzo approached Eric Webb and told him that his wife, Rachel Manzo, was bored with her $78,000-a-year job as the executive director of the House Tourism Committee and would be helping Webb out on the volunteer list effort.

Webb testified that Rachel Manzo kept her own duplicate copy of the volunteer list and was assigned to monitor specific legislative races. Webb testified that he and Rachel Manzo were in constant contact for several months, exchanging the list back and forth with updates and additions. He explained this was the only way to ensure that accurate records of the "volunteer efforts" were being maintained. Webb also discussed how Rachel Manzo had prepared her own variation of the list during the 2006 Veon primary race, where she traveled to Beaver County and worked at least four to five weeks as the volunteer coordinator on Veon's race.

The grand jury found that after the 2006 Veon primary election, in addition to maintaining the "volunteer" list with Webb, Rachel Manzo was involved in various campaign activities over the summer and fall, assisting with opposition research, petition challenges and the recruitment and assignment of "volunteers" for campaign work. In October she was dispatched to assist Representative Rick Taylor's campaign in Montgomery County.

Veon's Capitol Campaign Organization
The grand jury found that Veon, who had one of the largest Capitol and legislative staffs of any member, ran an illegal campaign organization from his offices which included fundraising, opposition research, the preparation and distribution of campaign mailings, blast e-mail messages and nomination petition challenges.

The grand jury found that Veon, through Foreman and Cott, directed Veon's employees to "volunteer" for work on specific political campaigns. Veon's employees accumulated days or weeks of fraudulent comp time so they could spend time away from their legislative offices and still be paid their taxpayer-funded salaries while they worked on campaigns.

The grand jury also heard how Veon turned his Beaver County district office into a campaign machine. The office equipment including the copy machine, computers and printers were all used to create and print campaign material.

Fundraising
The grand jury found that Veon created and operated a massive fundraising operation within an office suite in the Capitol, which was fueled almost exclusively by personnel and resources paid for by the taxpayers.

The operation was led by Veon, who put Patrick Lavelle in charge. Witnesses testified that Lavelle was simply known as the "fundraiser" for Veon and appeared to have no other duties beyond fundraising. Many of those who worked around him everyday testified that they had never seen him do anything but fundraising.

The grand jury found that Lavelle worked closely with and received direction from Veon, Foreman, Cott and Peretta-Rosepink. The grand jury found that virtually every aspect of the fundraising operation was orchestrated out of Veon's Capitol offices. Lavelle built extensive campaign donor lists and all of Veon's fundraisers were meticulously planned and organized from the Capitol. Veon's staff booked locations, prepared menus, established guest lists and assembled the invitations for Veon's fundraisers. All of these efforts were conducted under the direct supervision of Veon and Foreman.

Campaign and Fundraising Mailings
The grand jury found that another significant operation of Veon's Capitol staff involved the writing, printing and folding of tens of thousands of fundraising and campaign mailings, all completed at taxpayers' expense. Keefer performed most of the graphic design work on the mailings and the bulk of this illegal operation took place behind closed doors of Veon's Capitol suite.

Opposition Research
The grand jury also found that under the direction of Veon, opposition research was conducted by Democratic Caucus employees. Opposition research is an extensive investigation into the personal and professional life of political opponents and details the strengths and weaknesses of an opponent in an attempt to find general and specific campaign strategies for defeating the opponent. These opposition research reports are detailed, often taking weeks to prepare and are frequently more than 100 pages in length. This was all done at taxpayers' expense for the benefit of campaigns.

Corbett noted that the boxes that his agents seized from the Legislative Research Office contained hundreds of instances of opposition research and reports dating back to 1990.

Petition Challenges
The grand jury found that employees and resources of the House Democratic Caucus were historically and routinely used to conduct petition challenges against candidates who were opponents of Democratic House candidates or the Democratic Party. This effort was typically led by Michael Manzo or Cott. Employees were not required to, and did not, take leave for the time spent during their regular work hours on challenging nominating petitions.

These efforts were by no means limited to House races. Two outstanding examples of misappropriation of taxpayers' resources on petition challenges were the Ralph Nader for President of the United States in 2004 and the Carl Romanelli for the United States Senate in 2006.

The grand jury found that as many as 50 Democratic House Caucus staff members participated in the Nader petition challenge and contributed a staggering number of man-hours. A House Democratic employee testified before the grand jury that "everybody was working on this." It was virtually a caucus wide endeavor and many of the employees spent an entire week on the Nader petition challenge.

Upon the successful challenge to the Nader petition, Veon sent an e-mail to his staff stating:

"FYI .great job by our staff! This would have never been successful without your work. You have given John Kerry an even better opportunity to win this state.one of the 5 most important states to win this year."

"This is a very significant fact and significant contribution by each one of you to the Kerry for president campaign.you should take great pride in your efforts."

The Romanelli petition challenge was led by Cott, who announced it was very important to "leadership" that Romanelli not appear on the ballot. Staffers were told "not to worry about leave," but to focus on getting the petition challenges done as soon as possible.

Leader's Communication Office
The grand jury found that in 2003, Veon and Michael Manzo established the Leader's Communication Office (LCOMM), directed by Stephen Keefer. The supposed purpose of the office was to communicate to the residents of Pennsylvania about legislative efforts and agendas, through internet websites and blast e-mails. The reality proved to be quite different.

One of the people who worked in the Leader's Communication Office was Eric Buxton, who testified about the extensive campaign work performed by the LCOMM office. For example, he detailed about how he set up the entire House Democratic Campaign Committee website in 2004, while he was employed by the taxpayers. Buxton also detailed how campaign e-mails were written and sent from inside the Capitol by use of an offsite server, located in Michigan, which masked the true origin of the e-mails.

Buxton testified before the grand jury that he began negotiations in 2005 with Michael Manzo and Keefer that he should leave the caucus and start his own company to do work for the caucus on a contract basis. They agreed and Buxton formed a company called Govercom, and the House Democratic Caucus paid him $10,000 a month from September 2005 through the end of 2005 and $16,875 a month from Jan. 1, 2006 through the end of September 2007.

Buxton testified that his contract appeared to be for legitimate legislative work performed by his company, but that the contract was for services completely unnecessary to the Caucus and was a vehicle for the House Democratic Caucus to pay for campaign e-mail communication.

From subpoenaed contracts, invoices and Buxton's records, the grand jury found that the House Democratic Caucus paid $420,000 to Buxton's company between August 2005 and October 2007. Additionally, the grand jury discovered a second vendor, Gravity Webb Media, who was engaged in campaign work by providing candidate websites and mass e-mails. This cost the taxpayers more than $82,000 in 2006. This amounted to more than a half million dollars in taxpayers' funds used solely for campaign work.

Jeff Foreman's Private Law Practice
The grand jury found that Foreman, while employed as Veon's chief of staff, was paid $103,408 in 2004 and received a bonus of $8,315. In 2005 his salary was $118,352 and received a bonus of $5,565. In 2006 he was paid $126,204 and received a bonus of $14,815. Additionally, Forman worked at his own private law firm, Foreman & Foreman, and billed clients at the rate of $200 per hour. He often claimed to work a full day for the taxpayers, claimed multiple additional "compensatory" time for the taxpayers and claimed significant hours for his private legal practice. Sometimes, these totals exceeded 24 hours in a day.

Corbett said the grand jury found that while he was physically present at his legislative job in the Capitol, Foreman was actually doing work for his private law firm. Thus, the taxpayers paid Foreman, in salary, bonus, and compensatory time, to work on his private law firm business.

Michael Manzo's Ghost Employee
The grand jury found that in the summer of 2004, Michael Manzo met Angela Bertugli, a 21-year-old legislative intern, with whom he allegedly developed a long-running sexual liaison that continued through November 2007.

In September 2005 Manzo created a taxpayer-funded job for Bertugli in Pittsburgh and put her in charge of the Pittsburgh Field Office for the newly formed House Allegheny County Delegation.

Bertugli did not go through an interview or job application process prior to starting her "employment" and was not told what she would be doing, however she was told by Manzo to report on Sept. 12, 2005, to an office located above a cigar store in Pittsburgh.

The grand jury found that other DeWeese staffers were not aware that Bertugli had been hired or that there even was a Pittsburgh Field Office for the House Allegheny County Delegation. Staffers for the representative who chaired the Allegheny County Delegation were unaware of the existence, location or staff of such an office. Since the 19 Allegheny County Representatives already had offices, there was absolutely no need for an Allegheny County Delegation office. In fact, the grand jury found that no such office ever existed.

Bertugli, who was going to graduate school in Pittsburgh, was classified as a part-time employee and received an annual income of $21,091. Bertugli was given very few assignments by Manzo and had nothing to do up to 70 percent of the time and instead was being paid by the taxpayers to do her schoolwork or for doing nothing at all. The tasks that she did receive from Manzo were campaign related.

In 2006, Bertugli's annual salary was increased to $29,103, because her "employment" status was supposed to be increased to four days per week. She also received a $7,065 bonus in 2006. Her actual duties remained the same and the percentages of schoolwork/idleness and campaign work remained constant until she left the Pittsburgh office in July 2007.

In July 2007, Manzo arranged for Bertugli to be transferred to the Democratic Caucus Legislative Research Office in Harrisburg to accommodate Bertugli's acceptance into a Harrisburg law school.

A grand jury review of Bertugli's e-mails revealed both the intimate nature of her relationship with Manzo, as well as the political nature of the endeavors undertaken by Bertugli while she was "employed" in Pittsburgh.

Testimony from various witnesses and e-mail evidence corroborated the "ghost" aspects of Bertugli's position. One DeWeese assistant 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 DeWeese staffer testified before the grand jury that neither he nor any of his co-workers among the leadership staff ever had professional contact with Bertugli or any Pittsburgh regional office. That staffer stated:

".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."

By hiring Bertugli the grand jury found that Michael Manzo created an unnecessary, useless, non-productive position in an equally wasted location.

Veon's Vacation to South Dakota
The grand jury found that in 2004, Veon used two public employees, at taxpayer expense, to assist him with his vacation to South Dakota. He had them drive his and his wife's motorcycles to Sturgis, S.D., to save him the time and allow him to fly there and have the motorcycles waiting. The travel expenses, which totaled nearly $1,500, included flights for these public employees and were paid by the taxpayers.

Veon's Basketball Dinners
From 2002 through November of 2006 the grand jury found that Mike Veon, along with other House Democratic Caucus Members and certain employees, played basketball on Tuesday nights. Veon staffers were tasked with taking food orders from the players, ordering and purchasing food, and arranging it on Veon's conference table in his capitol offices for the returning players.

Veon's basketball dinners cost from approximately $100 to nearly $300. All of these dinners were paid from Veon's contingency account with taxpayer funds. The grand jury found that the taxpayers paid more than $22,000 for Veon's basketball dinners.

Corbett said the defendants will be arraigned before Harrisburg Magisterial District Judge Joseph Solomon, 1705 N. Front St., Harrisburg, 717-255-1365. They will be prosecuted in Dauphin County by Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina, Senior Deputy Attorney General Anthony Krastek, Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Blessington and Deputy Attorney General James Reeder, all of the Attorney General's Public Corruption Unit.

Corbett said the investigation is continuing and that more arrests are expected.

Below is a list of the defendants and the charges against them:

Michael R. Veon, 51, 2527 N. 2nd St., Harrisburg, is charged with 11 counts each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft of services, theft by deception, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and four counts of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 381 years in prison and $805,000 in fines.

Sean M. Ramaley, 33, 3 Leaf Court, Baden, is charged with one count each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and $85,000 in fines.

Michael Manzo, 39, 6200 Run Cross Lane, Enola, is charged with nine counts each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and two counts of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 311 years in prison and $660,000 in fines.

Rachel L. Manzo, 27, 6200 Run Cross Lane, Enola, is charged with two counts each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and criminal conspiracy. She faces a maximum penalty of 80 years in prison and $170,000 in fines.

Scott V. Brubaker, 43, 24 N. 20th St., Camp Hill, is charged with four counts each conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and two counts of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 144 years in prison and $310,000 in fines.

Jennifer K. Brubaker, 35, 24 N. 20th St., Camp Hill, is charged with three counts each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and two counts of criminal conspiracy. She faces a maximum penalty of 113 years in prison and $240,000 in fines.

Brett W. Cott, 36, 1305 ½ Green St., Harrisburg, is charged with eight counts each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and two counts of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 272 years in prison and $575,000 in fines.

Jeff Foreman, 57, 705 ½ Front St., Harrisburg, is charged with four counts of conflict of interest, five counts of theft by unlawful taking or disposition, five counts of theft by deception, four counts of theft of services, four counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and two counts of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 160 years in prison and $340,000 in fines.

Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink, 45, 1421 5th Ave., Beaver Falls, is charged with four counts each conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and two counts of criminal conspiracy. She faces a maximum penalty of 146 years in prison and $310,000 in fines.

Stephen Keefer, 38, 12 Circle Drive, Fredericksburg, is charged with three counts each of each conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and one count of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 106 years in prison and $225,000 in fines.

Patrick J. Lavelle, 29, 211 Boas St., Harrisburg, is charged with one count each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 40 years in prison and $85,000 in fines.

Earl J. Mosley, 52, 872 Country Lake Dr., Harrisburg, is charged with three counts of conflict of interest, three counts of theft by unlawful taking or disposition, two counts of theft by deception, three counts of theft of services, three counts of theft by failure to make required disposition of funds and one count of criminal conspiracy. He faces a maximum penalty of 106 years in prison and $225,000 in fines.

(A person charged with a crime is presumed innocent until proven guilty.)

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Remarks of Senator Barack Obama: 'A More Perfect Union'

Philadelphia, PA | March 18, 2008
As Prepared for Delivery

"We the people, in order to form a more perfect union."

Two hundred and twenty one years ago, in a hall that still stands across the street, a group of men gathered and, with these simple words, launched America's improbable experiment in democracy. Farmers and scholars; statesmen and patriots who had traveled across an ocean to escape tyranny and persecution finally made real their declaration of independence at a Philadelphia convention that lasted through the spring of 1787.

The document they produced was eventually signed but ultimately unfinished. It was stained by this nation's original sin of slavery, a question that divided the colonies and brought the convention to a stalemate until the founders chose to allow the slave trade to continue for at least twenty more years, and to leave any final resolution to future generations.

Of course, the answer to the slavery question was already embedded within our Constitution - a Constitution that had at its very core the ideal of equal citizenship under the law; a Constitution that promised its people liberty, and justice, and a union that could be and should be perfected over time.

And yet words on a parchment would not be enough to deliver slaves from bondage, or provide men and women of every color and creed their full rights and obligations as citizens of the United States. What would be needed were Americans in successive generations who were willing to do their part - through protests and struggle, on the streets and in the courts, through a civil war and civil disobedience and always at great risk - to narrow that gap between the promise of our ideals and the reality of their time.

This was one of the tasks we set forth at the beginning of this campaign - to continue the long march of those who came before us, a march for a more just, more equal, more free, more caring and more prosperous America. I chose to run for the presidency at this moment in history because I believe deeply that we cannot solve the challenges of our time unless we solve them together - unless we perfect our union by understanding that we may have different stories, but we hold common hopes; that we may not look the same and we may not have come from the same place, but we all want to move in the same direction - towards a better future for our children and our grandchildren.

This belief comes from my unyielding faith in the decency and generosity of the American people. But it also comes from my own American story.

I am the son of a black man from Kenya and a white woman from Kansas. I was raised with the help of a white grandfather who survived a Depression to serve in Patton's Army during World War II and a white grandmother who worked on a bomber assembly line at Fort Leavenworth while he was overseas. I've gone to some of the best schools in America and lived in one of the world's poorest nations. I am married to a black American who carries within her the blood of slaves and slaveowners - an inheritance we pass on to our two precious daughters. I have brothers, sisters, nieces, nephews, uncles and cousins, of every race and every hue, scattered across three continents, and for as long as I live, I will never forget that in no other country on Earth is my story even possible.

It's a story that hasn't made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts - that out of many, we are truly one.

Throughout the first year of this campaign, against all predictions to the contrary, we saw how hungry the American people were for this message of unity. Despite the temptation to view my candidacy through a purely racial lens, we won commanding victories in states with some of the whitest populations in the country. In South Carolina, where the Confederate Flag still flies, we built a powerful coalition of African Americans and white Americans.

This is not to say that race has not been an issue in the campaign. At various stages in the campaign, some commentators have deemed me either "too black" or "not black enough." We saw racial tensions bubble to the surface during the week before the South Carolina primary. The press has scoured every exit poll for the latest evidence of racial polarization, not just in terms of white and black, but black and brown as well.

And yet, it has only been in the last couple of weeks that the discussion of race in this campaign has taken a particularly divisive turn.

On one end of the spectrum, we've heard the implication that my candidacy is somehow an exercise in affirmative action; that it's based solely on the desire of wide-eyed liberals to purchase racial reconciliation on the cheap. On the other end, we've heard my former pastor, Reverend Jeremiah Wright, use incendiary language to express views that have the potential not only to widen the racial divide, but views that denigrate both the greatness and the goodness of our nation; that rightly offend white and black alike.

I have already condemned, in unequivocal terms, the statements of Reverend Wright that have caused such controversy. For some, nagging questions remain. Did I know him to be an occasionally fierce critic of American domestic and foreign policy? Of course. Did I ever hear him make remarks that could be considered controversial while I sat in church? Yes. Did I strongly disagree with many of his political views? Absolutely - just as I'm sure many of you have heard remarks from your pastors, priests, or rabbis with which you strongly disagreed.

But the remarks that have caused this recent firestorm weren't simply controversial. They weren't simply a religious leader's effort to speak out against perceived injustice. Instead, they expressed a profoundly distorted view of this country - a view that sees white racism as endemic, and that elevates what is wrong with America above all that we know is right with America; a view that sees the conflicts in the Middle East as rooted primarily in the actions of stalwart allies like Israel, instead of emanating from the perverse and hateful ideologies of radical Islam.

As such, Reverend Wright's comments were not only wrong but divisive, divisive at a time when we need unity; racially charged at a time when we need to come together to solve a set of monumental problems - two wars, a terrorist threat, a falling economy, a chronic health care crisis and potentially devastating climate change; problems that are neither black or white or Latino or Asian, but rather problems that confront us all.

Given my background, my politics, and my professed values and ideals, there will no doubt be those for whom my statements of condemnation are not enough. Why associate myself with Reverend Wright in the first place, they may ask? Why not join another church? And I confess that if all that I knew of Reverend Wright were the snippets of those sermons that have run in an endless loop on the television and You Tube, or if Trinity United Church of Christ conformed to the caricatures being peddled by some commentators, there is no doubt that I would react in much the same way

But the truth is, that isn't all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God's work here on Earth - by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS.

In my first book, Dreams From My Father, I described the experience of my first service at Trinity:

"People began to shout, to rise from their seats and clap and cry out, a forceful wind carrying the reverend's voice up into the rafters....And in that single note - hope! - I heard something else; at the foot of that cross, inside the thousands of churches across the city, I imagined the stories of ordinary black people merging with the stories of David and Goliath, Moses and Pharaoh, the Christians in the lion's den, Ezekiel's field of dry bones. Those stories - of survival, and freedom, and hope - became our story, my story; the blood that had spilled was our blood, the tears our tears; until this black church, on this bright day, seemed once more a vessel carrying the story of a people into future generations and into a larger world. Our trials and triumphs became at once unique and universal, black and more than black; in chronicling our journey, the stories and songs gave us a means to reclaim memories that we didn't need to feel shame about...memories that all people might study and cherish - and with which we could start to rebuild."

That has been my experience at Trinity. Like other predominantly black churches across the country, Trinity embodies the black community in its entirety - the doctor and the welfare mom, the model student and the former gang-banger. Like other black churches, Trinity's services are full of raucous laughter and sometimes bawdy humor. They are full of dancing, clapping, screaming and shouting that may seem jarring to the untrained ear. The church contains in full the kindness and cruelty, the fierce intelligence and the shocking ignorance, the struggles and successes, the love and yes, the bitterness and bias that make up the black experience in America.

And this helps explain, perhaps, my relationship with Reverend Wright. As imperfect as he may be, he has been like family to me. He strengthened my faith, officiated my wedding, and baptized my children. Not once in my conversations with him have I heard him talk about any ethnic group in derogatory terms, or treat whites with whom he interacted with anything but courtesy and respect. He contains within him the contradictions - the good and the bad - of the community that he has served diligently for so many years.

I can no more disown him than I can disown the black community. I can no more disown him than I can my white grandmother - a woman who helped raise me, a woman who sacrificed again and again for me, a woman who loves me as much as she loves anything in this world, but a woman who once confessed her fear of black men who passed by her on the street, and who on more than one occasion has uttered racial or ethnic stereotypes that made me cringe.

These people are a part of me. And they are a part of America, this country that I love.

Some will see this as an attempt to justify or excuse comments that are simply inexcusable. I can assure you it is not. I suppose the politically safe thing would be to move on from this episode and just hope that it fades into the woodwork. We can dismiss Reverend Wright as a crank or a demagogue, just as some have dismissed Geraldine Ferraro, in the aftermath of her recent statements, as harboring some deep-seated racial bias.

But race is an issue that I believe this nation cannot afford to ignore right now. We would be making the same mistake that Reverend Wright made in his offending sermons about America - to simplify and stereotype and amplify the negative to the point that it distorts reality.

The fact is that the comments that have been made and the issues that have surfaced over the last few weeks reflect the complexities of race in this country that we've never really worked through - a part of our union that we have yet to perfect. And if we walk away now, if we simply retreat into our respective corners, we will never be able to come together and solve challenges like health care, or education, or the need to find good jobs for every American.

Understanding this reality requires a reminder of how we arrived at this point. As William Faulkner once wrote, "The past isn't dead and buried. In fact, it isn't even past." We do not need to recite here the history of racial injustice in this country. But we do need to remind ourselves that so many of the disparities that exist in the African-American community today can be directly traced to inequalities passed on from an earlier generation that suffered under the brutal legacy of slavery and Jim Crow.

Segregated schools were, and are, inferior schools; we still haven't fixed them, fifty years after Brown v. Board of Education, and the inferior education they provided, then and now, helps explain the pervasive achievement gap between today's black and white students.

Legalized discrimination - where blacks were prevented, often through violence, from owning property, or loans were not granted to African-American business owners, or black homeowners could not access FHA mortgages, or blacks were excluded from unions, or the police force, or fire departments - meant that black families could not amass any meaningful wealth to bequeath to future generations. That history helps explain the wealth and income gap between black and white, and the concentrated pockets of poverty that persists in so many of today's urban and rural communities.

A lack of economic opportunity among black men, and the shame and frustration that came from not being able to provide for one's family, contributed to the erosion of black families - a problem that welfare policies for many years may have worsened. And the lack of basic services in so many urban black neighborhoods - parks for kids to play in, police walking the beat, regular garbage pick-up and building code enforcement - all helped create a cycle of violence, blight and neglect that continue to haunt us.

This is the reality in which Reverend Wright and other African-Americans of his generation grew up. They came of age in the late fifties and early sixties, a time when segregation was still the law of the land and opportunity was systematically constricted. What's remarkable is not how many failed in the face of discrimination, but rather how many men and women overcame the odds; how many were able to make a way out of no way for those like me who would come after them.

But for all those who scratched and clawed their way to get a piece of the American Dream, there were many who didn't make it - those who were ultimately defeated, in one way or another, by discrimination. That legacy of defeat was passed on to future generations - those young men and increasingly young women who we see standing on street corners or languishing in our prisons, without hope or prospects for the future. Even for those blacks who did make it, questions of race, and racism, continue to define their worldview in fundamental ways. For the men and women of Reverend Wright's generation, the memories of humiliation and doubt and fear have not gone away; nor has the anger and the bitterness of those years. That anger may not get expressed in public, in front of white co-workers or white friends. But it does find voice in the barbershop or around the kitchen table. At times, that anger is exploited by politicians, to gin up votes along racial lines, or to make up for a politician's own failings.

And occasionally it finds voice in the church on Sunday morning, in the pulpit and in the pews. The fact that so many people are surprised to hear that anger in some of Reverend Wright's sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races.

In fact, a similar anger exists within segments of the white community. Most working- and middle-class white Americans don't feel that they have been particularly privileged by their race. Their experience is the immigrant experience - as far as they're concerned, no one's handed them anything, they've built it from scratch. They've worked hard all their lives, many times only to see their jobs shipped overseas or their pension dumped after a lifetime of labor. They are anxious about their futures, and feel their dreams slipping away; in an era of stagnant wages and global competition, opportunity comes to be seen as a zero sum game, in which your dreams come at my expense. So when they are told to bus their children to a school across town; when they hear that an African American is getting an advantage in landing a good job or a spot in a good college because of an injustice that they themselves never committed; when they're told that their fears about crime in urban neighborhoods are somehow prejudiced, resentment builds over time.

Like the anger within the black community, these resentments aren't always expressed in polite company. But they have helped shape the political landscape for at least a generation. Anger over welfare and affirmative action helped forge the Reagan Coalition. Politicians routinely exploited fears of crime for their own electoral ends. Talk show hosts and conservative commentators built entire careers unmasking bogus claims of racism while dismissing legitimate discussions of racial injustice and inequality as mere political correctness or reverse racism.

Just as black anger often proved counterproductive, so have these white resentments distracted attention from the real culprits of the middle class squeeze - a corporate culture rife with inside dealing, questionable accounting practices, and short-term greed; a Washington dominated by lobbyists and special interests; economic policies that favor the few over the many. And yet, to wish away the resentments of white Americans, to label them as misguided or even racist, without recognizing they are grounded in legitimate concerns - this too widens the racial divide, and blocks the path to understanding.

This is where we are right now. It's a racial stalemate we've been stuck in for years. Contrary to the claims of some of my critics, black and white, I have never been so naïve as to believe that we can get beyond our racial divisions in a single election cycle, or with a single candidacy - particularly a candidacy as imperfect as my own.

But I have asserted a firm conviction - a conviction rooted in my faith in God and my faith in the American people - that working together we can move beyond some of our old racial wounds, and that in fact we have no choice if we are to continue on the path of a more perfect union.

For the African-American community, that path means embracing the burdens of our past without becoming victims of our past. It means continuing to insist on a full measure of justice in every aspect of American life. But it also means binding our particular grievances - for better health care, and better schools, and better jobs - to the larger aspirations of all Americans -- the white woman struggling to break the glass ceiling, the white man whose been laid off, the immigrant trying to feed his family. And it means taking full responsibility for own lives - by demanding more from our fathers, and spending more time with our children, and reading to them, and teaching them that while they may face challenges and discrimination in their own lives, they must never succumb to despair or cynicism; they must always believe that they can write their own destiny.

Ironically, this quintessentially American - and yes, conservative - notion of self-help found frequent expression in Reverend Wright's sermons. But what my former pastor too often failed to understand is that embarking on a program of self-help also requires a belief that society can change.

The profound mistake of Reverend Wright's sermons is not that he spoke about racism in our society. It's that he spoke as if our society was static; as if no progress has been made; as if this country - a country that has made it possible for one of his own members to run for the highest office in the land and build a coalition of white and black; Latino and Asian, rich and poor, young and old -- is still irrevocably bound to a tragic past. But what we know -- what we have seen - is that America can change. That is the true genius of this nation. What we have already achieved gives us hope - the audacity to hope - for what we can and must achieve tomorrow.

In the white community, the path to a more perfect union means acknowledging that what ails the African-American community does not just exist in the minds of black people; that the legacy of discrimination - and current incidents of discrimination, while less overt than in the past - are real and must be addressed. Not just with words, but with deeds - by investing in our schools and our communities; by enforcing our civil rights laws and ensuring fairness in our criminal justice system; by providing this generation with ladders of opportunity that were unavailable for previous generations. It requires all Americans to realize that your dreams do not have to come at the expense of my dreams; that investing in the health, welfare, and education of black and brown and white children will ultimately help all of America prosper.

In the end, then, what is called for is nothing more, and nothing less, than what all the world's great religions demand - that we do unto others as we would have them do unto us. Let us be our brother's keeper, Scripture tells us. Let us be our sister's keeper. Let us find that common stake we all have in one another, and let our politics reflect that spirit as well.

For we have a choice in this country. We can accept a politics that breeds division, and conflict, and cynicism. We can tackle race only as spectacle - as we did in the OJ trial - or in the wake of tragedy, as we did in the aftermath of Katrina - or as fodder for the nightly news. We can play Reverend Wright's sermons on every channel, every day and talk about them from now until the election, and make the only question in this campaign whether or not the American people think that I somehow believe or sympathize with his most offensive words. We can pounce on some gaffe by a Hillary supporter as evidence that she's playing the race card, or we can speculate on whether white men will all flock to John McCain in the general election regardless of his policies.

We can do that.

But if we do, I can tell you that in the next election, we'll be talking about some other distraction. And then another one. And then another one. And nothing will change.

That is one option. Or, at this moment, in this election, we can come together and say, "Not this time." This time we want to talk about the crumbling schools that are stealing the future of black children and white children and Asian children and Hispanic children and Native American children. This time we want to reject the cynicism that tells us that these kids can't learn; that those kids who don't look like us are somebody else's problem. The children of America are not those kids, they are our kids, and we will not let them fall behind in a 21st century economy. Not this time.

This time we want to talk about how the lines in the Emergency Room are filled with whites and blacks and Hispanics who do not have health care; who don't have the power on their own to overcome the special interests in Washington, but who can take them on if we do it together.

This time we want to talk about the shuttered mills that once provided a decent life for men and women of every race, and the homes for sale that once belonged to Americans from every religion, every region, every walk of life. This time we want to talk about the fact that the real problem is not that someone who doesn't look like you might take your job; it's that the corporation you work for will ship it overseas for nothing more than a profit.

This time we want to talk about the men and women of every color and creed who serve together, and fight together, and bleed together under the same proud flag. We want to talk about how to bring them home from a war that never should've been authorized and never should've been waged, and we want to talk about how we'll show our patriotism by caring for them, and their families, and giving them the benefits they have earned.

I would not be running for President if I didn't believe with all my heart that this is what the vast majority of Americans want for this country. This union may never be perfect, but generation after generation has shown that it can always be perfected. And today, whenever I find myself feeling doubtful or cynical about this possibility, what gives me the most hope is the next generation - the young people whose attitudes and beliefs and openness to change have already made history in this election.

There is one story in particularly that I'd like to leave you with today - a story I told when I had the great honor of speaking on Dr. King's birthday at his home church, Ebenezer Baptist, in Atlanta.

There is a young, twenty-three year old white woman named Ashley Baia who organized for our campaign in Florence, South Carolina. She had been working to organize a mostly African-American community since the beginning of this campaign, and one day she was at a roundtable discussion where everyone went around telling their story and why they were there.

And Ashley said that when she was nine years old, her mother got cancer. And because she had to miss days of work, she was let go and lost her health care. They had to file for bankruptcy, and that's when Ashley decided that she had to do something to help her mom.

She knew that food was one of their most expensive costs, and so Ashley convinced her mother that what she really liked and really wanted to eat more than anything else was mustard and relish sandwiches. Because that was the cheapest way to eat.

She did this for a year until her mom got better, and she told everyone at the roundtable that the reason she joined our campaign was so that she could help the millions of other children in the country who want and need to help their parents too.

Now Ashley might have made a different choice. Perhaps somebody told her along the way that the source of her mother's problems were blacks who were on welfare and too lazy to work, or Hispanics who were coming into the country illegally. But she didn't. She sought out allies in her fight against injustice.

Anyway, Ashley finishes her story and then goes around the room and asks everyone else why they're supporting the campaign. They all have different stories and reasons. Many bring up a specific issue. And finally they come to this elderly black man who's been sitting there quietly the entire time. And Ashley asks him why he's there. And he does not bring up a specific issue. He does not say health care or the economy. He does not say education or the war. He does not say that he was there because of Barack Obama. He simply says to everyone in the room, "I am here because of Ashley."

"I'm here because of Ashley." By itself, that single moment of recognition between that young white girl and that old black man is not enough. It is not enough to give health care to the sick, or jobs to the jobless, or education to our children.

But it is where we start. It is where our union grows stronger. And as so many generations have come to realize over the course of the two-hundred and twenty one years since a band of patriots signed that document in Philadelphia, that is where the perfection begins.