More arrests unlikely in corruption probe

The investigation has gone on for two years, and 12 people have been charged.

HARRISBURG (AP) — Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett said Thursday he does not anticipate additional arrests in the legislative-corruption investigation before year’s end but reiterated that more charges are likely.

Corbett cautioned that the timing of new charges could be speeded up as investigators continue looking into the alleged illegal use of public employees and tax dollars for campaign purposes.

“I am briefed every day, and I would say at least once a week I get a surprise,” Corbett told reporters at a Harrisburg news conference to outline his second-term agenda.

In July, Corbett’s office charged 12 people connected to the House Democratic caucus with conflict of interest, theft and conspiracy.

On Tuesday, he declined to provide a timetable for the investigation that has already taken nearly two years, and stressed again that Republicans and Democrats in both the House and Senate are being investigated.

“What happens is you get to a point and then all of a sudden here’s a new nugget of information,” he said. “There are so many rabbit trails that you have to go down. Some have something at the end; some have nothing at the end.”

Five Democratic losses in Tuesday’s legislative races were attributed, at least in part, to fallout from the investigation, and some Democrats have voiced bitter feelings that no Republicans were charged before the election.

Corbett, a Republican, was re-elected Tuesday with 52.5 percent of the vote. He said the results show public support for his handling of the probe.

“This investigation, other than the fact that we are investigating elected officials, is not an ‘R’ or a ‘D’ investigation,” he said. “This is, did people take money that was taxpayer money to do political events, to do political work, to do efforts to enhance their political careers and not perform the work of the taxpayer?”

At a preliminary hearing for two of the 12 defendants last month, the former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, D-Greene, said he believed DeWeese knew that taxpayer money was being doled out as bonuses to reward campaign work. DeWeese has denied that claim, which was made by former top aide Mike Manzo, and has not been charged.

On Tuesday, Corbett declined to say whether DeWeese has been exonerated.

“We have not issued any statement from this office that he’s going to be or not going to be charged. We said the investigation continues,” Corbett said. “If he wants to say that he was exonerated and the people accept that, that’s on the voters out there in Greene and Fayette County.”

DeWeese, who was re-elected Tuesday with nearly 55 percent of the vote, noted that he was not implicated in the grand jury presentments issued in July.

“The only sense of exoneration I felt was at the voting booths throughout the hills and valleys of my home district,” DeWeese said.

“Prosecutors do not exonerate,” he said. “They either charge or do not charge.”

Corbett said the legislative-corruption case is consuming a significant portion of his office’s resources, with six prosecutors and about half the 18 Bureau of Criminal Investigations agents devoted to it.

The attorney general listed public corruption among the areas he intends to focus on in the coming four years, along with drug gangs, sexual victimization of children, gun violence and abuse of older people.

“In these economic times, we’re going to see the scam artists and the bandits coming out and trying to take advantage of our seniors,” he said.

He also said he has not decided whether to run for governor in two years, as some predict.

“I enjoy public service, so obviously I’m not going to rule anything in or out right now,” he said.