Mar. 9, 2010: Defense Witnesses Paint Veon as an Honest, Hard-Working Guy
HARRISBURG — Former House Democratic Whip Mike Veon's "word was his bond" in the General Assembly, where he garnered respect for his integrity and his efforts on behalf of working people, his friends and former colleagues told a jury yesterday.
"Mike's focus was always to do what was best to help working families," Rep. Jim Wansacz, a Lackawanna Democrat, testified. "Mike was always an honest and hard-working guy."
Veon's lawyers opened his defense yesterday in Dauphin County Court. During five weeks of trial, jurors have heard from 29 witnesses for the prosecution, which claims he and three co-defendants used public resources for political campaigns.
Veon, 53, the former No. 2 leader of House Democrats, is accused of overseeing the use of $1.4 million of state money to pay legislative staffers to work on campaigns for Democratic candidates. Prosecution witnesses said Veon knew about his staff doing a wide range of political work on state time and with public resources.
The first defense witnesses portrayed a leader who worked long hours on legislation that he and other Democrats believed was important.
"His word was his bond. You can take it to the bank: solid gold," said former Rep. Dan Surra of Elk County, a friend of Veon's who is a $92,000 aide and senior adviser to Democratic Gov. Ed Rendell.
Much of the testimony dealt with dinners in Veon's Capitol office after pickup games at Harrisburg Area Community College, typically on Tuesday nights. Veon spent thousands of taxpayers' dollars to pay for groups of Democratic lawmakers to eat meals including filet mignon, salmon imperial, clams casino and Chinese and Mexican food, prosecutors said.
House rules allow lawmakers to charge for dinner even when they are collecting daily "per diem payments," as long as the dinner was at the Capitol and for legislative purposes, House Comptroller Alexis Brown testified. Per diems are flat payments for food and lodging. The food portion of the payment is $52, Brown testified.
Brown said that there's no way to tell whether legislative business is discussed and that the rules are "based on honesty."
Wansacz testified he collected per diems for food costs even when he attended dinners in Veon's office after weeknight basketball games.
"There was always a legislative purpose" to the dinners, Wansacz said.
During questioning by Senior Deputy Attorney General Patrick J. Blessington, Wansacz said he saw legislators who attended the dinners smoking cigars, playing cards and drinking alcohol in Veon's office. Veon's staff ordered, picked up and laid out the food, Blessington said.
Also on trial with Veon are Annamarie Peretta-Rosepink, 47, Veon's district office manager in Beaver Falls; Brett Cott, 37, a policy aide in Harrisburg; and Stephen Keefer, 39, the ex-director of House Democrats' information technology department. All four are charged with multiple felonies of theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest.