Rep. Bill DeWeese wants his Bonusgate trial moved out of Harrisburg and back to Greene County, saying most of the alleged crimes occurred back home and that the Harrisburg-area courts have been unfairly burdened with prosecuting so many Bonusgate actors. Isn’t that nice of him?
“The fact that all of the Bonusgate prosecutions to date have been prosecuted and tried in Dauphin County has increased the danger of prejudicial pretrial publicity,” wrote DeWeese lawyer Bill Costopoulos in a motion filed May 4.
Messages seeking comment left Monday weren’t immediately returned by Costopoulos, the attorney general’s office or Tom Farrell, a lawyer for DeWeese’s co-defendant and former district office aide, Sharon Rodavich. Feudale ordered that Farrell participate by phone in the hearing.
DeWeese, a former speaker and Democratic floor leader, is charged with conflict of interest, conspiracy and three counts of theft.
And Corbett never did get around to prosecuting any Republicans doing at least what the prosecuted Democrats did. Maybe he intends to return to unfinished business and run for attorney general again after his governorship.
In fairness, wasn't this mostly a Democratic problem?
The largest Bonusgate Payments actually occurred under Republican Senators and some ended up working for Corbett as Attorney General while he was running for Governor and suppose to be investigating them?
I stand corrected! Thank you for the info. Do you know which R senators had the biggest Bonusgate payments?
It was a Democratic problem only in that a Republican attorney general wanted to run for governor. He kept promising he would be investigating Rs, but he never got around to it. As you can see from the Orie problem, there was plenty to investigate.
I suppose so – honestly I was out of PA for a few years, so I didn't keep up as well as I should have. So the only part of the Bonusgate saga I remember well is the beginning. My bad!
The Republican Bonusgate defendants (Perzel, Feese, et.al.) allegedly misappropriated $10 Million while the Democratic Bonusgate defendants (Veon, DeWeese, et.al.) misappropriated $2 Million. Republicans were more ambitious (More GREEDY), and that was probably because the Attorney General (Tom Corbett) was a Republican who stood to benefit politically from the actions of Perzel, Feese, et.al. who weren't going to be prosecuted until the Democrats in the state legislature complained bitterly about the political, selective, discriminatory prosecutions of only Democrats for misappropriating public money for political gain.