By Whitney Roper, Contributing Writer

This week the Delaware County Daily Times reported that fifty-nine year old Paul Summers, of Drexel Hill, entered guilty pleas for seven counts of forgery and seven counts of false signatures that were circulated during the primary election March 2010.

Light was shed onto the incident last April when Republican 7th District U.S. Rep Pat Meehan asked authorities to investigate suspect petitions. Summers, who had served as an official circulator of nominating petitions for the Seventh Congressional District race, was named in the criminal complaint.

The Delaware County man was charged last month on misdemeanor counts after authorities had indeed discovered notable disparity in Meehan’s election paperwork. He was preliminarily arraigned February 2nd before Upper Darby Magisterial District Judge Harry J. Karapalides and released on $10,000 bail.

Summers’ attorney described Summers as a respectable individual and that his reason for falsifying election paperwork was that he felt obligated to provide the signatures in question. His attorney had also said that Summers’ especially felt this pressure when he had been ‘abandoned’ by individuals that ‘he sought to obtain help from.’

Summers was sentenced to two years probation and fined $1,400 – $100 for each count, as a result of a plea bargaining worked out by Summers’ attorney and state Deputy Attorney General Michael Sprow.

Meehan was not charged with any sort of link to Summers’ criminal act but rather it was decided that Summers had acted alone. The issue did spark some controversy last year during the election when Meehan defeated Democrat Bryan Lentz and third party conservative candidate Jim Schneller.

Correction: an earlier version of this story identified Summers as a Meehan staffer. He was never on the paid staff of the campaign. He was a volunteer.