Corbett Press Release

HARRISBURG - As part of an ongoing public corruption investigation into thePennsylvania Legislature, agents from the Attorney General's Public Corruption Unittoday filed criminal charges against Representative John Perzel and former RepublicanRepresentative Brett Feese. Also charged are eight current or former aides to Perzel andFeese.Attorney General Tom Corbett said the charges are part of an ongoing grand juryinvestigation into the misuse of public resources and employees for campaign purposes inthe Pennsylvania Legislature.

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Corbett said the grand jury issued a 188 page presentment recommending that he filecriminal charges against the defendants.Among those charged, in addition to Perzel and Feese, are Perzel's former Chief of Staff,Brian Preski; his current Chief of Staff, Paul Towhey; Perzel's brother-in-law and former House employee, Samual "Buzz" Stokes; Perzel legislative aide John Zimmerman; Perzelcampaign aide Don McClintock; Feese aides Jill Seaman and Elmer Bowman; and former House Republican Information Technology Deputy Director Eric Ruth.The defendants are each charged with numerous theft, criminal conspiracy and conflict of interest charges. Additionally, Perzel, Feese, Seaman, Towhey and Zimmerman are eachcharged with obstruction of justice.Corbett said that in the first phase of the investigation his agents charged 12 defendants inJuly of 2008. Trials are scheduled for December and January 2010.As in the first phase of the investigation, Corbett said, the grand jury uncovered aconcerted plan to use taxpayers' funds, employees and resources for political campaign purposes.Corbett said during this phase of the investigation, millions of e-mails, faxes, contracts,letters, memos and other documents were acquired and thousands of pages of testimonyhave been presented to the grand jury. Additionally, hundreds of interviews wereconducted.Evidence was recovered from various locations in the United States. Agents andattorneys traveled to New Orleans and Washington, D.C. as part of their efforts toreconstruct the extensive amounts of pertinent evidence that was reportedly missing fromthe House Republican Caucus.

Obstruction of theInvestigationCorbett said the review andanalysis of this huge volumeof material, in a criminalinvestigation of thismagnitude, was an extremelytime consuming butnecessary process. He notedthat the criminal obstruction by some in the HouseRepublican Caucus, as wellas a determined effort bysome in the HouseRepublican Caucus not tocooperate with theinvestigation, played a large part in the length of the investigation.Corbett said his office, as well as the grand jury, experienced a series of deliberate acts byHouse Republican members and employees to obstruct and hinder the investigation. As aresult of their impediment to the investigation, significant amounts of time and resourceshad to be spent in litigation, investigating the absence of certain evidence and testing theaccuracy of information provided in response to the grand jury process.Corbett said that these efforts to obstruct the investigation have resulted in significantdelays in the grand jury's efforts to define potential crimes, identify those who committedthe crimes and to protect those who are innocent of criminal wrongdoing.Corbett said that while some charges of obstruction of justice have been filed today, anobstruction of justice investigation within the House Republican Caucus continues.Habay PrecedentAs mentioned in the prior phase of the investigation, Corbett said, the investigation, prosecution, conviction and prison sentence of former Republican Representative Jeff Habay in 2004 and 2005 by the Attorney General's Office for using his legislative staff for campaign and fundraising purposes should have put legislative leaders and their staffson notice that the Attorney General's Office and the courts take a stern view of suchillegal activity.Corbett said the grand jury used the guidance of the Pennsylvania Superior Court in itsHabay decision, when the Court stated that an elected representative is "not allowed todirect state paid employees under his authority to conduct campaign and or fundraisingrelated work, during state paid time, for his personal benefit." The court said suchactions secure "a private monetary advantage" for an elected representative because, "byhaving state employees work for him on his campaign and or fundraising tasks while they

were being paid by the state, he obtained the benefit of free campaignwork funded by the taxpayers."Representative John PerzelThe grand jury found that John Perzel was the architect behind asophisticated criminal strategy that ultimately spent more than $10million of taxpayers' money purely for campaign work. Once thefoundation of Perzel's illegal scheme was in place, the grand juryfound Perzel went to great lengths to maintain control and expand his power through illegal means.The grand jury heard testimony on John Perzel's rise to power and his plan to maintain and expand his power.John Perzel was elected to the House of Representatives by the votersfrom Northeast Philadelphia in 1978, he was elected by theRepublican House members as Chairman of the House RepublicanCaucus in 1990, and then House Majority Leader in 1994 when theRepublicans won the majority in the House of Representatives. Perzelserved as Majority Leader until 2003, when he was elected Speaker of the House by the members upon the death of Representative MatthewRyan. Perzel remained Speaker until the Democratic Caucus regainedthe majority status of the House of Representatives in 2006.The grand jury found that Perzel was aggressive in the acquisition andretention of power. He demanded obedience and loyalty and punishedthose, whether they were elected officials or employees, whochallenged his power.Contrary to prior practices as speaker, Perzel retained a virtuallyunprecedented degree of power over the resources of the HouseRepublican Caucus, including funding for various caucus departmentssuch as Research, District Operations, Printing and Information andTechnology.Republican House members and employees who were favored byPerzel, such as former Representative Brett Feese, were rewarded with prominent positions in the Republican Caucus. Brian Preski, whoserved as Perzel's Chief of Staff from 2000 to 2007, was arguably themost powerful person in caucus short of Perzel himself.Perzel's 2000 Election and the Rise of TechnologyThe grand jury found that Perzel's 2000 election campaign became adefining moment and the impetus for much of the criminal activitythat the grand jury investigated. On election eve in 2000, after theinitial vote count, Perzel was losing his re-election in his Northeast

Click on images for larger photo

John Perzel

Brett Feese

Brian Preski

Paul Towhey

Samuel "Buzz"Stokes