Perhaps as True makes her way around the Capitol re-acquainting herself with staff and old colleagues, at least one person - member or staff - in the Democratic caucuses will get a chance to ask her why they were subpoenaed, dragged before a grand jury and perhaps even threatened with arrest by then Attorney General Tom Corbett for doing campaign work on state time in the Capitol building, while she was left alone.
Campaign finance reports filed by True herself show that she was well aware and a willing participant in illegal campaign activity in the Capitol, but did nothing to stop it. In fact, she repeatedly sent checks to the House Republican Campaign Committee in "Suite B 6 Main Capitol. You can see the reports for yourself here, here, and here.
And, the same type of activity was going on in the Senate Republican Caucus with Senate President Joe Scarnati's complete knowledge...otherwise why would he direct a $5000 contribution to the Senate Republican Campaign Committee in the "Main Capitol Building?" You can see it in black and white right here. Take a closer look at just this one page of Scarnati's campaign report and you will also see that he sent a reimbursement check for campaign work to Casey Long at a State Capitol mailbox, and sent money for tickets to a fundraiser for House Speaker Sam Smith to Smith's district office at 527 E Mahoning Street in Punxsutawney.
These are just two examples of members of the legislature using Capitol offices and staff for campaign work, but left untouched by Corbett. Check some of the others out for yourself here.
Everyone knows the Pennsylvania state legislature is incredibly unpopular. As Corbett begins his campaign for re-election, you can be sure he'll want to tout his prosecution of members of the body while he was Attorney General. Maybe folks in Harrisburg will ask why he did so in such a selective fashion?
21 comments:
Gibson, 43, an officer for 17 years and son-in-law of Gov. Corbett, was ordered to stand trial on six theft-related charges by Municipal Court Judge Felice R. Stack.
Corbett had his 4 years to create a great staff, implement fair, reasonable Bi-Partisan Legislation, and make the Commonwealth a better place to live, work, and enjoy.
Corbett failed, why re-elect him again, no staff changes will help him now, and no policy changes will help him later, he is only Bi-Partisan when he shows if they want to him to be partisan, they have to Bi Him?
Like Second Mile bought him by giving him over $600,000 to not investigate them in the Sandusky Scandal? Now that is how you buy a policy over being investigated for Child Abuse Crimes!!!
The governor has made his bed, no press secretary can save him. The people of PA hate his political agenda. GOTV. Anyone but Corbett, Smile.
ABC. Right?
Pennsylvania Gov. Tom Corbett called for an investigation into The Second Mile, the charity that gave accused child rapist Jerry Sandusky access to thousands of young boys around the state.
"I need to know what [the charity's] board members knew," Corbett told the Wall Street Journal.
It shouldn't be hard for him to find out. Many of the charity's board members are Corbett's campaign donors.
Take Lance Shaner, the Chairman of the Shaner Companies and CEO of Shaner Hotels. Shaner served on The Second Mile board from 1998 through 2006, many of the crucial years when it comes to the Sandusky case.
Shaner contributed $155,550 to Corbett's gubernatorial campaign.
Then there's Bob Poole, who runs a construction company and has been with The Second Mile since 1998.
Poole is currently the chairman of the board, a position he's held for years, although you wouldn't know it because the charity has scrubbed the board information from its website. Pool gave Corbett's gubernatorial campaign $9,133.34.
The connections between Corbett and The Second Mile are numerous, as you might expect with a charity that spiderwebs out from Penn State across Pennsylvania.
Corbett has been dipping into the wallets of Second Mile board members since he first ran for attorney general in 2004.
For now, though, let's limit our analysis to direct contributions from board members to Corbett's campaign for governor, which took place in the 2009-10 election cycle.
The numbers below won't tell us much about Corbett's mindset or his work investigating Sandusky as attorney general.
But they do illustrate the relationships among The Second Mile, Penn State, and all of Pennsylvania, and they capture just how well-connected Sandusky's charity was.
Corbett even approved a $3 million state grant this summer to help The Second Mile build an expansive new facility, according to the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. The grant is now on hold.
http://deadspin.com/5859802/past-and-present-board-members-of-the-second-mile-gave-a-combined-20178364-to-gov-corbetts-2010-campaign
CORBETTS' GRAND JURY COVER UP OF BEAVER COUNTY PACYBERSCHOOL NOW IS A FEDERAL INDICTEMENT LINK:
Looks like Corbett bogus State Grand Jury tat found nothing wrong at his Beaver County Campaign Head and his Wife now has some explaining to do due to the Federal Indictment of the Beaver County Based PACYBERSCHOOL 11 Count Indictment.
Former Commissioner James Camp was Corbett's campaign Manager in Beaver County for Corbett's Governor Campaign.
Camp chose to enroll at the University of Pittsburgh while working on County Time as Commissioner during the entire Bonusgate Investigations.
Camp made sure his wife who unqualified in Education was given a plum job by now indicted Nick Trombetta at the school.
A PAOAG Grand Jury had a 2 year probe into the Cyberschool but never issued any report and Corbett dropped the investigation with no Grand Jury Report when it involved investigations on Republican Investors with campaign ties to Camp and Corbett were using Real Estate Transactions enriching themselves from CyberSchool purchases of State and Federal Money.
Wonder if this Indictment can lead back to Corbett's cover Ups of Crimes by Grand Juries he never reported once it led back to Republicans?
I think we will now see Corbett resigning and not running next year? He is on the run!
LINK ON BEAVER COUNTY CYBERSHOOL INDICTMENT:
http://www.timesonline.com/top_stories/trombetta-accountant-indicted-for-tax-fraud/article_74499588-7130-53cd-8faa-5a3df0b553dc.html
What led up to the indictment
The PA Cyber Charter School began as a small operation in the 2000-01 school year.
The school -- which quickly grew from a school originally designed to educate 60 students to an enrollment of 11,000 students this year -- spawned a number of other business ventures; some legitimate, some not, according to federal investigators.
An indictment against PA Cyber School founder and former Chief Executive Officer Nick Trombetta alleges Trombetta, with the help of his accountant Neal Prence, used the businesses, both for-profit and nonprofit that formed over the years to funnel taxpayer money out of the Cyber School to about paying federal income taxes.
Here is a timeline leading up to the indictment: All under the Terms and Eyes of AG Corbett & Governor Corbett and his Republican Campaign Staffers during all three Corbett elections???
2003 -- Trombetta, along with others not named in the indictment, founded the Buckeye Online School for Success, known as BOSS, as an Ohio-based provider of cyber and online education.
2005 -- Trombetta founded the National Network of Digital Schools, commonly referred to as NNDS, which was a non-profit corporation created to manage the cyber school.
January 2006 -- Trombetta and his sister, Elaine Trombetta Neill, founded One2One, which was supposed to provide research and business development consulting. In fact, the company was simply a straw company set up to channel money to individuals, including Trombetta and his sister, the indictment says.
2006 -- The Lincoln Park Performing Arts Charter School was opened and housed in the Lincoln Park Performing Arts Center
Also in 2006 -- A state grand jury began investigating the operations after allegations of financial, legal and ethical irregularities were made against Trombetta and the entities he was leading. Though the grand jury met for months, no charges ever resulted from that investigation.
2008 -- Trombetta founded the Avanti Management Group, known as AMG, as a for-profit company, to provide management services to NNDS.
June 30, 2012 -- Trombetta resigned from the PA Cyber Charter School.
July 12, 2012 -- Federal agents served a search warrant in the executive offices of the cyber school in Midland and the office of Prence Certified Public Accountants in Koppel.
July 2012 -- Trombetta created another company based in East Liverpool called Presidio Education Network.
Aug. 21 -- A federal grand jury indicts Trombetta and Prence for tax fraud.
Aug. 22 -- Trombetta and Prence turn themselves in.
Trombetta gave many Campaign Contributions to Corbett???
Let's talk about those donations that came from Nick Trombetta via funds from Avanti Management Group and see who they went to: (Where is JD Prose when you need him?)
Tom Corbett $5,000
Elder Vogel $2,500
Jim Christiana $2,500
Eugene DePasquale $2,500
Jacob Corman III $2,000
So here you have it folks. Your tax dollars ended up in the campaign accounts of the above politicains. Let's see if Corbett and crew offer to give the money back.
Personally ask our locals, Jim Christiana and Elder Vogel if they will give the money back to the people.
Meanwhile, Trombetta took all the workers at Avanti and their entire families to Italy for an all expenses paid vacation and termed it a working retreat.
He was close friends with Governor Corbett, who was funneling our tax dollars to private schools yet could care less if the Philly kids ever get an education. Corbett should be investigated in this mess, too.
I had been hearing for years the rumors about PA Cyber, grade inflation, nepotism and overpaid employees that do little or nothing for their work. I discounted many of the rumors thinking that someone would have exposed it (some folks said the Corbett's GRAND JURY would do some investigative Reports, but nothing was reported not even a Grand Jury Report after Corbett got Campaign Donations LOL), but I am amazed at the level of thievery that appears to have gone on.
Theses charges are outrageous that the scant money available for our children’s education was stolen and used to live the high life while so many struggle in PA to support and feed their families.
I can only hope all money is taken from those who stole it, Politicians give it back, and those found guilty are given maximum jail time.
If one reads the entire endictment, and you will see how deep this is. I do find it hard to believe that the 4 straw partners were not aware of what was going on though.
What needs to be investigated is both Governors Ed Rendell and Tom Corbett. They started the flood of money.
The timeline omits the creation of RODIS, the predecessor to NNDS.
Here's the question of the day.
Will the politicians that took money from Trombetta and the 4 straw partners give that money back to the public???
Elder Vogel
Babish $1,250
Manning $2,000
Geibel $2,500
Price $2,500
Trombetta $2,500
Jim Christiana already gave back the $2,500 from Trombetta, but where did that $132,000 from Students First come from and was it also a vehicle of Nick Trombetta's?
Jim Marshall
Avanti Management Group
$5,900
This is our tax dollars that went into the campaigns of local officials. I didn't check the state and federal officials out.
Will we get our tax dollars back?
Why does a state official take money under ANY circumstances from a group like this????
PA Cyber isn't a business, it's a private/public school that gets education funding to operate. This is just a backdoor pay raise for the politicians.
This is the part I don't get. 4 so-called "straw partners" get a job at Avanti, and I assume they are getting well paid and probably even benefits.
1. They are told to make contributions to the political candidate of "Trombetta's choice", and they think it's okay to get reimbursed by Avanti?
An idiot would know that's illegal!
2. Same "straw partners" take over running Avanti, but are told; "You run it for awhile and when I'm ready to take it back, I'll give you $500,000". Again, they know that all the money that comes to Avanti is from PACyber and NNDS, who gets said money from state and federal funds and OUR TAX DOLLARS, and again, they think it's all okay to get a half million dollar windfall on top of a salary and benefits.
Am I the only one that thinks they knew better, or they should have known better?
The ironic thing is that I'm not against Cyber or Charter education, but we are paying for kids to get an education, not for someone to get windfall after windfall from our tax dollars.
The other article that NNDS feels vindicated. Well, I'm here to tell you that I don't think they should be vindicated. They are getting one heckuva chunk of money and they knew.
This will doom Governor Corbett's Re-Election!
Other charges in the indictment involve the Buckeye Online School for Success, which was created by Trombetta and others in 2003 to provide cyber education in Ohio,
Additionally, Wingspan LLC and Wingspan New Mexico, which were involved with Trombetta in order to promote and sell online education to school districts in New Mexico that had a significant number of Native American pupils
The indictment also alleges that Trombetta had employees of PA Cyber and NNDS provide services for out-of-state companies including BOSS and Wingspan, and then recouped payment from the companies for his own benefit by having the money deposited to the One2One account.
Using his influence, Trombetta also had Avanti employees and their spouses make personal contributions totaling more than $40,000 to political candidates of his choosing, according to the indictment.
Trombetta then used Avanti funds to reimburse the employees, the indictment alleges.
“When individuals enrich themselves with this money rather than act as stewards of the education funds entrusted to them, our communities and the children we are obligated to educate are the true victims,” Perdue said.
“We allege that this was a conscious, intentional scheme, to steal public money that was to be used to educate our children,” Hickton said.
By the way, the current Budget Secretary for Corbett as well as his former Secretary of Education both came into his cabinet from the cyber/charter school industry. Yes, that word is right..industry.
And in this stolen public education funding industry, one has to remember that the least common denominator in the charter and cyber school industry is money.
Well, let's see.
We have tax money being siphoned from the schools that need it to go to the "for profit" cyber schools or the charter schools where the local school boards and tax authorities have no say in how that money is being spent.
For example, one can see ads on TV for both cyber and charter schools. Don't see ads for the local public schools.
So now we have a Trombetta the PACYBERSCHOOL Boss of Bosses indicted on charges that involve money that came from tax funds.
Not a surprise here.
But that's okay, our Republican controlled legislature and Republican governor are hell bent for leather to siphon as much money to these groups as possible, so it must be legal!
In 2001, then-Western Pennsylvania Cyber Charter School founder Nick Trombetta appeared before the state Senate Education Committee warning lawmakers of the phenomenon he saw forthcoming with the advent of cyberschools on the state’s public school arena.
Trombetta, who at that time was also superintendent at Beaver County's Midland School District, said, "Left unchecked and uncontrolled, we will see a proliferation of cyber charter schools in Pennsylvania that will drain dollars away from our schools, away from our children, away from our commonwealth,"
Federal prosecutors accused Trombetta of doing the very same thing he said about cyberschools 12 years ago.
Nick Trombetta recently Indicted by the FEDS after AG Corbett's Two Grand Juries never gave a report, is now available.
After all, once Trombetta gave Corbett $5,000 and hired Corbett's Beaver County Campaign Manager, Charlie Camps wife, all of the sudden the Grand Jury after listening to months of testimony never said one word of any Report????
I credit Corbett he has the vision to appoint a new Cabinet a Year and half before any election, call that vision or the ability to see the future of something.
Corbett is like a Cat with a Long Tail in a room full of Rocking Chairs, no matter where he sits, his tail is crushed and he moves to another location and it happens again and again.
Godspeed Tom Corbett!
His use of the chopper here does not bother me.
It's the record he's compiling as Governor that concerns me much more.
Let's not nitpick on$150 flights when there are so many other serious problems like the Guv's desire to be more loyal to Grover Norquist than the people of the state.
Word has it that the other Republican governors meeting in Wisconsin this past weekend didn't miss Tom Terrific.
They've all seen his 'pull my finger' trick.
Bet Governor Corbett sure wishes he could get rid of Kathleen Kane!
Over 31 months, Governor Corbett-enabler of Sandusky-lost eleven members of his team. That is a telling story of Corbett’s Administration lacks vision and leadership.
How is Governor Corbett going to survive the next 15 months that include his bid for re-election for Governor 2014?
Governor Corbett-enable of Sandusky-should bow out of office before years end.
This would give the PA GOP time to select from its stable of gubernator candidates.
Even though their stable of candidates are extremely lean.
Why, Harrisburg Patriot News, are you omitting from your report the fact that Mr. Alexander resigned under a cloud after it was brought to light that he was milking the taxpayers to pay for his out of state travel to commute back and forth to Rhode Island?
Rats jump ship soon as they see it is sinking to find a new home to eat, the USS Gov Corbett has hit an Iceberg of melting reality, of Corbett's own making 10 years ago, BogusGate is coming home to roost, and Corbett has no life raft only life rats!
GOP to select Corbett replacement.
LT Gov Jim Cawley was hosting WHP Radio's afternoon show today.
If Corbett's prosecutors (Frank Fina and company) were still in power, they would be indicting Cawley tomorrow.
Imagine, the LT Gov hosting a for profit commercial business where all his guests called him Governor?
Corbett put people in jail for allegedly theft of service charges.
Was Cawley on vacation or personal leave to do the show?
Was Cawley paid to do the show?
I wonder what Fina would say. Of course, Corbett would have provided the script. After all, Fina stated that the illegal use of a campaign cell phone to conduct business with the AG's office is OK since the taxpayers did not pay for the communication equipment. Lord knows what the discussions were about. Destroying your enemies?
It is clear now that the corporations, Pennsylvania Society, and the Power Elite in the Commonwealth are running out of ways to reward their champion, Governor Tom Corbett.
Even though the wisdom is pointing to telling that they want Corbett to retire. Looks like they will be doing different strategy. They will not worry about Corbett’s Re-Election anymore.
Corbett will not accept a lavish retirement package, including special "privileges," if he announces his retirement anymore. No matter how many emphasizes to Corbett the benefits of corporate-run society and the importance of respecting executive and political decisions.
The Republicans have held an emergency meeting to discuss Corbett’s obstinate refusal to retire, the PA RNC meetings are revealing what was conceived is no longer merely to slake political worries, but to demonstrate the futility of individualism and longevity in the intended purpose of Corbett’s Re-election.
The outcome is strange and not a bad strategy at all. They will use their Oil and Gas combination of Roman Empire-styled decadence and fraction mixed with a vision of a bizarre, loveless future will be the evocative and unsettling display of making sure Congresswoman Allyson Schwartz will be his opponent.
After the Primaries, the revelation of Congresswoman Support of Obama Care that will be reaching peak hate by the electorate ta that time next year, along with a liberal agenda for Gun Control will end the Democrats chances of winning.
AG Kane will not release anything negative on Corbett either from her Sandusky review.
There is only one Peacock to be the First Woman Governor and AG Kane will make sure it is her not Schwartz.
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