Attorney General Corbett announces charges in legislative bonus investigation - 12 suspects charged in 1st phase of the investigation

Click here to watch video of the news conference

Romanelli sees scandal as an aid

Former Green Party candidate for Senate was bumped off ballot through efforts of state Dem Party.

In the aftermath of criminal charges last week in the state payroll-bonus scandal, Carl Romanelli is hoping to use the accusations to ease his own legal woes.

He filed on Wednesday a motion asking that either the state Supreme Court reopen his case for more testimony or remand it to the Commonwealth Court for new discovery.

Hoping to run for U.S. Senate in 2006, Romanelli, a former Green Party candidate, had collected 93,000 signatures on his nomination petition, well over the 67,000 he needed. However, a challenge led by the state Democratic Party challenged enough of the signatures that he was booted from the ballot and, during drawn-out legal saga, saddled, along with one of his lawyers, with more than $80,000 in court costs and penalties.

But state Attorney General Tom Corbett announced last week charges against 12 people involved in the state House Democratic Caucus for illegally giving state-funded bonuses to state employees for performing partisan political work, like campaigning and challenging nomination petitions. Corbett specifically drew attention to Romanelli’s case, which he called one of “two outstanding examples of misappropriation of taxpayers’ resources.”

Romanelli now hopes to use those allegations in his lawsuit, in which he alleged a Democratic conspiracy to have him removed. Read more...

**********

Letter to Philadelphia Inquirer Editorial Page from Nader's Attorney

Letters: One Reader's View

Investigate sabotage of Nader efforts

It is unfortunate that Pennsylvania Democratic Party spokesman Abe Amoros used the criminal indictment of 12 prominent Pennsylvania Democrats as an occasion, once again, to defame 2004 independent presidential candidate Ralph Nader and 2006 Green Party senatorial candidate Carl Romanelli ("National tie to Pa. bonus scandal," July 15).

As Amoros should know, only a tiny number of signatures on the Nader petitions - 687 or 1.3 percent of the total - were counted as "forgeries" by their signers, and in the words of Pennsylvania Supreme Court Justice Thomas Saylor, there is "no evidence" to support Democrats' claims that the Nader campaign was even aware of such signatures. Furthermore, no allegation of fraud was ever raised against Romanelli's petitions.

There is, however, evidence that the Nader petitions were the target of widespread and deliberate sabotage: specifically, petition circulators discovered and removed about 7,000 obviously fake signatures prior to submitting the petitions.

Attorney General Tom Corbett should make it a priority to discover who was behind this unlawful conduct, and to clarify the role of the law firm mentioned in the indictment, which helped perpetrate the miscarriage of justice that denied Pennsylvanians their free choice of candidates in the 2004 presidential election.

Oliver Hall

Counsel to Ralph Nader

Washington