LaGrotta claims he’s innocent after all

PITTSBURGH (AP) — Former state lawmaker Frank LaGrotta has told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette his unpublished memoirs will show he wasn’t guilty of conflict-of-interest charges.

LaGrotta, a Beaver County Democrat, was sentenced to six months’ house arrest after pleading guilty in February 2008 to placing his sister and her daughter in state jobs that paid them for little or no work.

LaGrotta says he did nothing illegal and pleaded guilty only to protect his sister and niece from what he says was a politically motivated prosecution.

Kevin Harley, a spokesman for Republican Attorney General Tom Corbett, says LaGrotta admitted his crimes in court and “either he was lying then or he was lying now.”

LaGrotta lost his seat in the 2006 Democratic primary.