HARRISBURG – It was all Bill DeWeese’s fault.
That was what a lawyer for former State Rep. Mike Veon, DeWeese’s longtime second-in-command, spent the better part of three hours telling jurors yesterday as Veon’s Bonusgate theft trial got under way.
It was then-Minority Leader DeWeese, not Veon, who controlled the purse for House Democrats between 2004 and 2006, when $1.4 million in secret state-funded bonuses went to legislative aides as rewards for working on political campaigns, defense lawyer Dan Raynak said. He told jurors DeWeese “was the guy at the top of the pyramid.”
Raynak’s words came after a prosecutor laid out the state’s case, accusing the 53-year-old Veon (D., Beaver) of having masterminded the bonus system that gave the scandal its name.
The bonus system, said Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick Blessington, was a “brilliant scheme that worked like a charm.”
So successful was the cash-for-campaigning idea that by the spring of 2006, Blessington said, “a veritable army of people were volunteering.
“They knew a check was coming,” the prosecutor added. “These bonuses were absolutely, positively, and illegally linked to campaign work.”
Veon, once the House Democratic whip, and three codefendants – former top aides Brett Cott, Steve Keefer, and Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink – are charged with numerous counts of theft, conflict of interest, and conspiracy.
“What this comes down to is very simple. All of these charges involve these defendants using taxpayer money, taxpayer-paid resources, for campaign work,” said Blessington. “That is a crime.”
For his part, Raynak painted a much different picture of the man at the center of the corruption case, calling his client and longtime friend “the hardest-working legislator in the last 22 years.”
In a rambling opening speech laden with snippets of previously secret grand-jury testimony, Raynak sketched a defense strategy that jurors can expect to unfold.
Read the full Inquirer article here
Tags: Bill DeWeese, Bonusgate, Mike Veon
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