Up in Lawrence County, where faith in government has historically been strained by the shenanigans of public officials and the influence of the mob in nearby Youngstown, Ohio, the latest brouhaha has created nearly a perfect storm of outrage and titillation.

Lawrence County Treasurer Gary F. Felasco

"I've been here for 27 years," confides one longtime employee at the courthouse in New Castle, "and this is our best scandal."

This one's about unpaid taxes, questionable financial deals and clandestine sex parties, all focused on a county treasurer who has apparently fled the state in the wake of relentless hounding by the local newspaper, the New Castle News.

Now 37-year-old Gary F. Felasco, a former New Castle auto mechanic and the treasurer since 1996, is under investigation by the state police and the attorney general's office.

"It's funny and it's unbelievable, but it's sad," said state Rep. Frank LaGrotta, D-Ellwood City, who pushed for an outside investigation instead of one by the district attorney to stem what he calls an "erosion" of public confidence.

"People really don't expect anything to happen. But I really want people to know that they can trust the government. I'm encouraged. I've been assured by the state police that they are going to follow this through to the end."

Cynicism runs deepest in the county seat of New Castle, population 28,000, where many suspect Felasco is hardly the only politician who deserves an investigation.

But for now, he's the one under the microscope, and most think it's time to stop talking and let the authorities bring charges if they can.

"I think people are getting disgusted hearing about it now," said Larry Mooney, who runs Yoki's Coffee Shop with his mother at the corner of East Washington Street and Rose Avenue and has known Felasco since they both ran for public office in 1993. "Let the attorney general do what they have to do. It's time for New Castle and Lawrence County to move on."

The investigation revolves around Felasco's conduct while wearing three hats: treasurer, tax claims director and chairman of the Lawrence County Housing Authority.

Felasco and his wife, Jeannine, own four properties on Cunningham Avenue in New Castle's 4th Ward but hadn't paid any property taxes since 2000, when Felasco was appointed head of the tax claims bureau. Someone, it turns out, mysteriously put a freeze on his real estate so it couldn't be sold at a sheriff's sale. Freezes also were placed on delinquent properties owned by some of his employees and associates.

'Jeannie in a Bottle'

Then, in March, the number for Felasco's county-owned cell phone turned up in connection with an Internet site called Jeannie in a Bottle.

That prompted an undercover investigation by the New Castle News that revealed Felasco and his wife used county phones to give directions to swinger parties they hosted at hotels and a club they rented next to a makeshift church where the pastor complained of "disgusting noises" next door.

Finally, there are allegations that Felasco may have had a hand in improperly transferring funds from Hill View Manor, the county-owned nursing home, to a private company trying to buy it and that he improperly took nearly $1 million from the liquid fuels fund to cover a gap in the county budget.

While investigations and audits continue, Felasco has been removed as head of the tax claims office and voted out as head of the housing authority.

Many think he should step down as treasurer, too, especially since he no longer shows up for work.

"I wish he would resign," said county Commissioner Ed Fosnaught. "I think public officials have to maintain a level of public trust. I think that when the public trust is violated that whoever does that needs to be removed from office."

Felasco initially denied the allegations, but in recent weeks he's been hard to find.

His staff at the courthouse said last week he wasn't in and couldn't say when he'd be back. His two-story house on Cunningham, where he lived with Jeannine and their six children, including two sets of twins, is silent. Neighbors haven't seen anyone living there for awhile.

Rumor is that the Felascos have moved to Boardman, Ohio, and are home-schooling their children, the oldest of whom are teenagers. The youngsters had been teased at school about the sexual escapades of their parents.

"I tell you who I really feel bad for is the children," said Mooney, "and that is the consensus in town."

It all started in February, when someone tipped the newspaper that Felasco hadn't paid any taxes for four years. The commissioners ordered Solicitor John Hodge to investigate. An audit discovered the Felascos owed $8,213 and that records showed notations indicating tax sales had been "stayed," or frozen, without a court order.

Others got help, too

It also revealed that several employees of the treasurer's office also had unauthorized stays placed on their property, as did some Section 8 landlords with whom Felasco had dealings on the housing authority.

Delinquent property owed by Donald Conti, for example, also was marked "stayed." Conti is on the housing authority board with Felasco, and his wife, Gloria, works in the treasurer's office.

"The inescapable conclusion," Hodge said in a report, "is that Mr. Felasco, or someone acting at his behest or on his behalf, made the notations on the tax records or the properties would have been exposed to sale two years from the year of the taxes."

Felasco did end up paying the taxes, but the commissioners removed him as head of tax claims on March 2 and shut down the office.

Then came the "sexcapades." In early April the New Castle paper published an expose on Felasco's use of two county-owned cell phones.

An online group on Yahoo! called Jeannie in a Bottle had announced plans for a private party to take place on March 27 at a Days Inn in Girard, Ohio.

The Web site, run by a woman using the screen name "jeanfun4all," has been shut down, but it previously featured pornography. "Jeanfun4all" described herself as 36 and from the Ohio and Pennsylvania area.

The newspaper decided to set up a sting by joining the group and getting an invitation.

In an e-mail from "jeanfun4all," the reporter was advised to call 724-651-5772 for more information. That was the number of one of Felasco's county-owned phones, for his use as treasurer.

The party was described as interracial and involving at least five couples, with more expected. Twelve other parties had been announced on the site, too, starting in September 2003.

On March 27, the newspaper staffers went to the hotel and called the number on the pretense of asking for directions. According to the paper, a man picked up and then handed the phone to a woman answering to "Jeannie," who then told the reporter, "Here, talk to Gary."

"Gary" provided the directions. The reporter recognized his voice as Felasco's.

After that, the paper reported, the staffers watched seven people enter a room and saw others peering through the room's curtain.

Outside in the parking lot, a photographer shot a picture of a blue conversion van with a Pennsylvania license plate reading "FELASCO."

The van belongs to Gary Felasco and was seen outside his house in New Castle earlier in the day. The News ran the photo on the front page and detailed hundreds of personal calls on Felasco's county phone.

The sex parties weren't really a secret, apparently.

Many in the region said they'd heard rumors about them before the story came out. Others pointed out that Felasco's use of a van with a personalized plate didn't indicate a man trying to hide.

Ray Lucich, a council member in tiny West Middlesex north of New Castle on Route 18, certainly knew what was going on.

'Disgusting noises'

Last fall, he said, he got word from a local pastor named Joe Marzano that something strange was going on inside the adjacent rooms of the cinder-block building on Sharon Road where Marzano rents space for his church, Grace in the Wilderness Fellowship.

Lucich visited the church one night and heard for himself. The building is partitioned off, with one side rented by the church and the other by a tool rental company. Empty rooms are in the middle.

"This was a swinger's club," Lucich said. "There were 12 or 15 people there. They had some futons in there. There are pieces of plywood over some windows. You could easily hear what was going on, plain as day."

The rooms were rented by Jeannine Felasco under the name Funbunch Tours, Lucich said.

The landlord, John Miller, didn't meet the zoning ordinance for an adult-oriented club, and he didn't have an occupancy permit, either.

So Lucich told him the swingers couldn't come back, and they haven't.

Of course, everyone in town had heard about what the Felascos described as their "social club."

"It's a small town, West Middlesex," said Lucich. "We only have one red light. Everyone knows what's going on."

Even if they didn't before, they do now -- and so does everyone else interested in Lawrence County's image.

"You can understand why the voters are disenchanted," said LaGrotta, who has often complained about local graft and patronage. "The arrogance of some of the elected officials in New Castle is such that they don't think they'll get caught."

In town, the whole sorry episode is seen as one more black eye. Ask the locals about it and invariably you get a laugh, a sigh or an eye roll as if to say: It's public life as usual here.

"When you love Lawrence County like we do -- and we wouldn't have opened this shop here if we didn't -- something like this is tough," said Mooney, the coffee shop owner. "It's embarrassing."