Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett directed that the subpoena to Twitter Inc. for the records of the accounts for bfbarbie and CasablancaPa be dropped after Brett Cott was sentenced this morning for his role in Bonusgate.
Cott, who was an aide to State Rep. Mike Veon, received 21 to 61 months along with fines totaling $11,000 and a requirement to pay $50,000 restitution to the state.
Why pile on Corbett must have figured.
The subpoena was an attempt by Corbett to connect to Cott statements disparaging the investigation after being found guilty of theft of service, conflict of interest and conspiracy to commit conflict of interest following a six-week trial that ended in March.
The statements would have shown a serious lack of remorse.
Convicted in the same trial were Veon, a Democrat who represented the 14th District from 1985 to 2006, and two other Veon aides.
Bonusgate involved tax money being used to pay political aides for campaign work in the form of large year-end bonuses. Ironically, much of work performed by the staff hacks involved keeping candidates to left of the Democratic Party off the ballot.
Cott, for instance, was reportedly instrumental in keeping Carl Romanelli, a Green Party candidate, off the ballot for U.S. Senate in 2006. He was paid salary of $223,000plus bonuses of over $39,000from 2004 to 2006 and apparently little of his time was spent on constituent services or legislative matters.
The subpoena from the state Investigative Grand Jury was signed by Judge Barry F. Feudal. It was the cause of the moment yesterday as speculation went around the nation that Corbett, who won the Republican gubernatorial nomination Tuesday, was trying to squelch critics or expose whistleblowers.
More irony is that these same “free speech” and privacy advocates outraged over the exposure of a thief have been silent on the matter of George Donnelly who spent two days in jail and faces eight years in prison for trying to videotape a confrontation involving federal officers and a man trying to distribute fliers in front of the federal courthouse in Allentown.
Meanwhile, the Senate Democrats, today, passed a financial regulatory bill that allows the government to collect data on any person operating in financial markets at any level, including the collection of personal transaction records from local banks, including customers’ addresses and ATM receipts.
Wonder how many of the Anti-Corbettites are going to express concern.
