HARRISBURG –As part of an ongoing public corruption investigation into the Pennsylvania Legislature, agents from the Attorney General’s Public Corruption Unit today filed criminal charges against Representative H. William DeWeese, of Greene County, and former Representative and state Department of Revenue Secretary Stephen Stetler, of York County. Also charged is DeWeese district aide Sharon Rodavich.
Attorney General Tom Corbett said the charges are part of an ongoing grand jury investigation into the misuse of public resources and employees for campaign purposes in the Pennsylvania Legislature.
Evidence of the defendants’ alleged criminal activity was placed before a statewide investigating grand jury, which recommended that Corbett file criminal charges.
DeWeese Fundraising Activities
The grand jury found that from 2001 until 2007, political fundraising work for DeWeese was conducted from within the Capitol, primarily at taxpayer expense.
According to the grand jury, DeWeese hired Kevin Sidella onto his Capitol legislative staff in 2001. It was clear, even from his job interview that his primary function was to be DeWeese’s campaign fundraiser.
DeWeese’s former Chief of Staff, Michael Manzo, testified that Sidella, “handled every aspect of Bill’s fundraising,” and stated that Sidella did the work during the legislative work day and with DeWeese’s knowledge
Sidella testified before the grand jury and provided details that he raised millions of dollars for DeWeese’s political campaigns while being paid by the taxpayers as a member of DeWeese’s Capitol staff.
Sidella said his work included identifying, tracking and targeting significant campaign contributors, as well as scheduling DeWeese fundraisers. Sidella used a specialized fundraising database on the state computer system which tracked donors, contribution amounts and campaign expenses.
In addition to hearing testimony from witnesses, the grand jury also obtained documents from the publicly funded House Democratic Caucus computer network, which contained thousands of pages of lists of DeWeese campaign donors, potential donors and campaign expenditures.
The grand jury also obtained e-mails sent from the publicly owned House Democratic Caucus e-mail system that reveal the fundraising efforts and participation of DeWeese, as well as employees and leaders of the House Democratic Caucus.
One email exchange from Thursday, November 4,2004, at approximately 3:00 p.m. is particularly telling. Then Chief of Staff Manzo sent the following e-mail to DeWeese and Sidella:
Now that the dust has settled, I want to up date you on your efforts this year. At $460k to candidates in HDC this year, you broke your personally record by over a $100k. You were the HDCC’s single largest contributor, beating Nundell by a good $400k. Veon likely comes in at about $350k. And now for the good news…you have $95k on hand right now. And some in the pipe line. It is a very real possibility that you are sitting on over $300k by June 2005, in an off year!!!!!!!!! You have separated yourself from the field on that front. You are now nearing Fumo-status. You and Kevin have done an incredible job.
Michael Manzo.
Several minutes later DeWeese responded to Manzo and Sidella, as follows: Could not do without Kevin and CHIEF…….Our Chief!!!!!!!!!
To which, Manzo immediately responded: The sky is the limit with this team. I really believe that.
Corbett said the grand jury found that from 2001 to 2006, Sidella was paid more than $275,000 in salary by the taxpayers as a legislative employee of DeWeese, but in reality he spent the majority of his time raising millions of dollars for DeWeese’s political campaigns.
DeWeese’s Use of Legislative Staff for Campaign Work
The grand jury heard testimony from numerous past and present members of DeWeese’s legislative staff from his district offices. Each testified that campaign work for DeWeese was expected and detailed years of political and campaign work performed at the direction of DeWeese. They testified that they were directed to do campaign work as part of their jobs, often during the work day, in the legislative office.
The grand jury found that DeWeese’s legislative staff and campaign staff were virtually one and the same. DeWeese’s former Chief of Staff Manzo testified that DeWeese had no campaign apparatus beyond his legislative staff. The core group of legislative staffers DeWeese used for campaign work was from his legislative district offices in Greene County.
The campaign work included obtaining signatures for DeWeese’s nominating petitions; preparing, printing, copying and sending political and campaign letters to voters; reviewing and copying street lists of voters; helping to arrange campaign meetings and campaign events; helping to arrange and staff fundraising and campaign events; and conducting door to door campaigning for DeWeese.
The grand jury found that a primary supervisor in the day-to-day campaign work for DeWeese in the district office was Sharon Rodavich, who was employed as an outreach director since 1994.
Of the numerous legislative aides that testified before the grand jury, not a single staffer was able to identify any specific legislative work that Rodavich actually performed. However, they testified that her main responsibility was political and campaign work.
Manzo testified that Rodavich “did nothing but politics” and other than that, “didn’t do any work.”
The grand jury also found that Rodavich rarely came to work. Every coworker who testified observed that Rodavich was usually absent from the office. DeWeese was well aware of Rodavich’s absence from work but did nothing to correct the issue.
The grand jury found that even though Rodavich barely reported to work in the district office, she accrued large amounts of leave during her employment. As of August 2007, Rodavich had accrued 585 hours of sick leave; 641 ½ hours of vacation leave; 65 hours of personal leave and 137 ¼ hours of compensatory leave, which is leave awarded for hours worked in addition to an employee’s paid work hours.
The grand jury took particular note of the amount of compensatory leave claimed by Rodavich. From 1999 to 2007, Rodavich was awarded more than 2,800 hours of compensatory leave time.
To earn this compensatory time, Rodavich was supposedly attending many after hour meetings and functions as an official representative of DeWeese.
Corbett said his agents attempted to identify and confirm the field work allegedly performed by Rodavich. Interviews were conducted and records acquired at many of the locations where Rodavich was supposed to be performing her outreach duties. The agents found that Rodavich attended few of the meetings and functions where she claimed to be in attendance for legislative purposes.
From1999 to 2007, Rodavich was paid more than $230,000 in salary by the public.
Stetler’s Illegal Conduct
The grand jury found that former Representative Stephen Stetler illegally directed House Democratic Caucus employees to conduct opposition research for political campaigns and unlawfully ordered his own legislative staff to perform campaign activities, including fundraising, on state time.
Stetler represented York City in the legislature from 1991 through 2006. In 2002, his fellow Democratic House members elected him to a leadership position as chairman of the House Democratic Policy Committee. He also was chosen to lead the House Democratic Campaign Committee (HDCC), the outside campaign arm of the House Democratic Caucus.
Opposition Research
The grand jury found that prior to the 2004 election, Dan Wiedemer, the executive director of the House Democratic Campaign Committee, and Jessica Walls, the committee’s political director, approached Stetler about hiring an outside firm to conduct opposition research.
Opposition research is a thorough 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. Opposition research is time consuming and often requires traveling to courthouses, looking at civil and criminal records of a potential candidate, as well as reviewing their voting records if they are local officials. The information is compiled in a detailed report which is frequently more than 100 pages in length.
Prior to 2004, the grand jury found that opposition research was being conducted illegally by House Democratic Caucus employees under the direction of then Representative Mike Veon. Wiedemer and Walls were not happy with the quality of the opposition research and approached Stetler to hire an outside firm to perform the task.
According to the grand jury, Stetler flatly rejected Wiedemer and Walls’ idea of obeying the law. Why would the HDCC pay an outside firm for Oppo, Stetler asked Wiedemer when they had a “perfectly good system in place already [?]” Walls testified that Stetler’s attitude was, “we have this resource right here. Why do we need to do that [?]”
At Stetler’s direction, Wiedemer assigned Democratic House Caucus staff members to conduct opposition research. The grand jury obtained e-mails that reveal that Stetler was heavily involved in ensuring that staff assignments were made and that the opposition research was being accomplished. Stetler even had a meeting in his Capitol office to discuss the progress of the work.
The grand jury found that Stetler also required members of his legislative staff to do campaign work on legislative time. One of Stetler’s legislative assistants testified that Stetler assigned him to work on the York mayors’ race. The aide never put in for leave and performed the work during normal working hours from Stetler’s district office.
The grand jury also found that Stetler hired a legislative staff member who had prior political fundraising experience and that he made it clear to her that she would be required to conduct political fundraising as part of her duties. She used the state computer system and tracked contributions using the same fundraising program used by Sidella and Veon’s fundraiser, Patrick Lavelle.
The defendants will be prosecuted in Dauphin County by Public Corruption Unit prosecutors Frank G. Fina, Patrick Blessington and Kenneth Brown II. They are scheduled to surrender tomorrow before Harrisburg Magisterial District Judge William C. Wenner.
Below is a list of the suspects and the charges against them:
— H. William DeWeese, 59, Waynesburg, is charged with one count 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 Received and Criminal Conspiracy (to commit Conflict of Interest and/or Theft).
— Stephen Stetler, 60, York, is charged with one count 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 Received, and Criminal Conspiracy (to commit Conflict of Interest and/or Theft).
— Sharon Rodavich, 53, Carmichaels, is charged with one count 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 Received and Criminal Conspiracy (to commit Conflict of Interest and/or Theft).
If convicted of all charges the defendants will face up to 40 years in prison and $85,000 in fines.
