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Ex-GOP strategist tied to looting of dad's estate

Tuesday, January 28, 2003

By Dennis B. Roddy, Post-Gazette Staff Writer

Joseph Waldholtz, the flamboyant former Republican strategist whose financial antics landed him in prison and derailed his wife's congressional career, went on trial yesterday on charges he looted the estate of his late father.

	Joseph Waldholtz, left, walks into the courtroom of Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Manning yesterday for trial on charges that he looted his late father's estate. (Joyce Mendelsohn, Post-Gazette)

The nonjury trial, before Allegheny County Common Pleas Judge Jeffrey Manning, attracted little attention for a man who eight years ago was the subject of a nationwide search after revelations he had posed as a millionaire and gotten his then wife, Enid Greene, elected to Congress using money he scammed from his millionaire father-in-law.

The 1995 scandal ended Greene's congressional career and ended with Waldholtz spending time in a federal prison. He could be sent back to prison if he is convicted on a collection of state charges. He is accused of diverting thousands of dollars into his own account while handling the estate of his father, Harvey Waldholtz, who died in 1999.

Waldholtz's lawyer, Joseph Alexander Paletta, began the case with a petition to withdraw as counsel because, after taking on Waldholtz as an indigent, the county public defender's office discovered he had found work as an advertising buyer for a development company.

Manning resolved the difficulty by instructing Waldholtz to reimburse the public defender's office for Paletta's work. The judge then rejected a motion to suppress what amounted to a signed and sworn confession by Waldholtz that he had forged a signature on a check made out to his brother, Bruce, as part of his late father's veterans benefits and deposited the money into a bank in Boston.

In all, Waldholtz is accused of diverting $13,095 from his father's estate, $14,220 from the account of his stepmother, Marilyn, as well as a $25,000 life insurance check intended for his stepmother, and his brother's $5,223.55 share of his late father's Veterans Affairs life insurance payment.

In his unsuccessful bid to suppress the statement he signed admitting to the forgery, Waldholtz took the stand yesterday, saying he was "terrified" when he got a call from Timothy Barry, a Veterans Affairs fraud investigator, about the check.

Waldholtz said he feared that if he did not cooperate with Barry, he could be sent back to prison, and so agreed to make a sworn statement explaining that he cashed the check and used the money to cover expenses related to his father's business.

The trial resumes today.

Dennis Roddy can be reached at droddy@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1965.