crime

Fired Pennsylvania Turnpike chairman Mitchell Rubin has agreed to repay the state senate $150k he received in no-work contracts and to serve six months house arrest and 4.5 years probation. He pled guilty to an obstruction of justice charge.

In US court documents filed today prosecutors say during months of talks he made differing and contradictory claims about his role for five years getting $30k/year on the payroll by his patron then-senator Vincent Fumo.

For sheer chutzpah and audacity at tapping the public till a prize goes not to a Pennsylvanian but to New Jerseyite - to "legal counsel" for the South Jersey (toll) Transportation Authority (SJTA), Michael A Angelini. The guy though clearly an outside consultant managed to persuade someone at SJTA years ago that he should be paid as if he were an employee and enrolled in the state pension system called PERS (Public Employees Retirement System).

The US Attorney's office in Philadelphia this morning formally charged Mitchell Rubin with a single obstruction of justice count in line with reports that he has been cooperating with the Feds to help them dig deeper into corruption at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

US congressman Glenn `GT’ Thompson, (Republican, Howard, 5th District PA) is asking Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett to investigate claims in former financial manager Ralph Bailets’ lawsuit against the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission (PTC).

S Michael Palermo a former associate executive director at the Pennsylvania Turnpike and longtime flunkey to jailed state senator Vincent Fumo apologized in US District Court today, and said he had been wrong to sign on for no-work contracts with agencies of the state of Pennsylvania.

Donations to politicians continue to create trouble for PBS&J, the big employee owned engineering firm headquartered in Tampa FL. There's news today that the company's chief financial officer says in a  Securities and Exchange Commission filing that they cannot file their annual report because of an ongoing internal investigation into possible illegal behavior by staff.

The large US Department of Justice prosecution that put the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission's longtime state senate patron Vincent Fumo into jail for four and a half years for 137 counts of thievery and corruption was run by Patrick Meehan, the US Attorney for the Eastern District of Pennsylvania.

Pennsylvania Turnpike employees have received an email ordering them to retain a wide range of documents because of multiple corruption investigations. The email called a Revised Mandatory Preservation Order gives an indication of the scope of the FBI and state's attorney's probes - a legal "roadmap."

The specific projects listed for document preservation:

A number of Pennsylvania Turnpike officers have lost computer hard drives to the Federal Bureau of Investigation.

Former Pennsylvania Turnpike staffer and "consultant" S Michael Palermo, 69, pled guilty to fraud today in US District Court in Philadelphia. Charged with receiving $290k in state funds through phony work contracts arranged with Democrat Senate leader Vincent Fumo, Palermo admitted receiving the payoffs and agreed to repay the money to the state in return for 12 months house arrest and five years probation.

Morning Call, the major newspaper of northeast Pennsylvania frontpages a report today that there's a major criminal investigation into corruption at the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission.

Toll collectors at interchanges 16E and 15X of the New Jersey Turnpike were robbed at gunpoint before dawn Sunday. The first holdup was at the toll plaza where HBO's Tony Soprano is seen in the standard opening scenes of the Sopranos crime series grabbing a ticket from a ticket dispensing machine after driving from Manhattan through the Lincoln Tunnel - no E-ZPass for mobsters!

Convicted on all 137 counts of corruption and thievery in a US Court ex-senator Vincent Fumo was today sentenced to 55 months in jail and ordered to make $2m in restitution and pay $411k in fines. Fumo, 66,  who was for years a dominant figure in the state senate stole an estimated $3.5m from the state and from non-profits he ran.

Two of six employees of Aggregate Industries NE have pled guilty in US District Court in Boston to being part of a conspiracy to rip off the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority by sending bad concrete to the Big Dig project. The six were indicted on US charges in 2006.

Leading Big Dig building contractor Modern Continental pled guilty in US Court in Boston today to 40 out of 50 charges of fraud, making false statements, and other misconduct in connection with shoddy work that led to a fatal ceiling collapse and water leaks in tunnels.

One out of nineteen counts of the US indictment issued today against deposed Illinois governor Rod Blagojevich and his cronies relates to the Illinois Tollway. Count 18 alleges that Blagojevich and others attempted extortion using the Governor's perceived power over Tollway projects and contracts.

A statement explaining the count is headed "Attempted extortion of Highway Contractor" and reads:

Pennsylvania Governor Edward Rendell says in a letter released this morning that he is removing the chairman of the Turnpike Commission, Mitchell Rubin as a commissioner because of his links to corruption. Rubin had asked Rendell for a "leave of absence" from the chairmanship, but instead the Governor today fired him from the Commission.

The Governor gives four reasons in his letter to Rubin:

Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission chairman Mitchell Rubin has been formally notified he is the "target" of an FBI investigation. Following notification Rubin wrote the state governor Ed Rendell saying that he wishes to take "leave" from the chairmanship. He said in the letter to the governor that this was to attend to "personal matters."

Vincent Fumo, the Pennsylvasnia Turnpike's leading legislative patron while a Democrat state senator and Ruth Arnao, wife of the chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission have been found guilty on all 182 counts in the big corruption case against them tried in Philadelphia by the US Government.