The chief of staff for state Rep. Michael Diven was charged yesterday with falsifying nominating petitions after an investigation revealed that a number of signatures on the lists were fraudulent.

Debora Romaniello, 51, of Brookline, who has worked as the representative's chief of staff for the past five years, was arraigned yesterday on charges that include unsworn falsification to authorities, perjury under the election code, and false signatures and statements in nomination petitions. She was released on her own recognizance.

Police said Mrs. Romaniello made a false statement under oath to election officials when she turned in nominating petitions containing signatures that were names of several dead people during the run-up to the May primary. According to a court affidavit, Mrs. Romaniello signed an election affidavit as the person who circulated the nominating petitions.

Daniel Romaniello Sr., her husband and a Pittsburgh Public Schools board member, declined to comment and referred questions to her lawyer, Wayne V. DeLuca. Mr. DeLuca did not return phone calls to his home and office last night.

Mr. Diven, a Republican from Brookline, called the charges "gutter politics at their worst," and said he firmly believed that Mrs. Romaniello would be exonerated in court. He said he had no plans to demote or fire her.

He said the petitions were circulated by a number of staffers working on his re-election campaign. Mrs. Romaniello turned in the petitions under the impression that all of the signatures were accurate, he said.

Mr. Diven said he later learned that one of the staffers responsible for getting the names apparently wrote down a number of names from a street ledger and then signed the petition as those people. He said he fired the staffer, whom he did not name, immediately after he learned the petitions had been falsified.

"I believe this an effort to get at me by attacking [Mrs. Romaniello] and I am confident that she is going to be found innocent," said Mr. Diven.

"She believed she was signing a petition that was accurate," he added. "She did so with no malice and no attempt to deceive anyone."

He said he was surprised that the Allegheny County police and the county district attorney's office would pursue charges against Mrs. Romaniello since he officially withdrew from the primary's Republican ballot in March.

At that time, Mr. Diven's nominating petitions had been challenged on a number of grounds. His opponents claimed they contained numerous errors in the names of, and information about, the signers, and that in a handful of cases, purported signatures came from people who were deceased.

A hearing on the case had been scheduled in March, but in view of Mr. Diven's withdrawal, Commonwealth Court dismissed the case as moot. Mr. Diven later went on to win the GOP nomination for another term in his South Hills district through a write-in campaign.

Police said all of the fraudulent entries on the petitions were confined only a handful of streets in his district. Several of the people who had purportedly signed the list had died years ago and some had moved away, police said.

One of the names on the list, James Bradley, lived in the 800 block of Middle Road before his death in 2002.

Sandra Bradley, his wife, said last night she was stunned when she found out that his name appeared on the petition. Mrs. Bradley said Mr. Diven called her shortly after it was revealed that her husband's name appeared on the list and apologized.

"I don't know how they ever got away with it," Mrs. Bradley said. "My husband probably would have signed the petition if he had been here."