HARRISBURG — Prosecutors are expected to call former Rep. Mike Veon's chief of staff Jeffrey Foreman to the witness stand today as their second witness in Veon's public corruption trial.
Foreman will follow Mike Manzo, the former chief of staff to ex-House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese of Greene County, who accused Veon of approving taxpayer-paid bonuses for campaign work.
Defense attorneys hammered Manzo last week for his admission that he created a fake caucus job for his girlfriend, and for testifying against Veon to save himself and his wife Rachel, another former staffer, from long prison terms.
Foreman, an attorney, and Manzo entered guilty pleas in the bonus scheme and are testifying under plea agreements that significantly reduced charges they faced.
Veon, formerly of Beaver Falls, is accused of overseeing $1.4 million in bonuses and using state-paid staff for political events. Three aides — Brett Cott, Annamarie Peretta-Rosepink and Stephen Keefer — are standing trial with Veon on charges of theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest.
The Democrats recaptured the House majority in 2006, but Veon lost the general election to Republican Jim Marshall in the fallout over the aborted 2005 legislative pay raise. Veon was an engineer of the pay raise.
Although DeWeese was titular head of the Democratic Caucus, he abdicated daily responsibilities to Veon, Manzo said.
"(Manzo) has explained to the jury this scheme that existed for years, how it occurred, who was behind it and that taxpayers paid for it," said Senior Deputy Attorney General E. Marc Costanzo. But Costanzo disputed the notion that Manzo was the star witness, or even a crucial witness, for the state.
The grand jury in July 2008 outlined the scheme without Manzo's testimony, while Manzo was a defendant in the case, Costanzo said. "This was a good introductory witness," he said.
But Veon's lawyer Dan Raynak pointed out that "they're not calling some low-level person in the IT Department" as the first witness. The defense was notified the state's initial witnesses would be Manzo, Foreman and Scott Brubaker, the former caucus administrator, Raynak said.
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