HARRISBURG -- Frank LaGrotta, a former state representative from Lawrence County, was sentenced to six months of house arrest and 30 months of probation today after pleading guilty to placing two relatives on the payroll as ghost employees.

Dauphin county Common Pleas court Judge Richard A. Lewis also ordered Mr. LaGrotta, 49, of Ellwood City, to pay a $5,000 fine, perform 500 hours of community service and $27,092 in restitution to the state. He pleaded guilty to two felony counts of violating the state's conflict of interest law.

Mr. LaGrotta was charged in November with putting his sister, Ann Bartolomeo, 46, and niece, Alissa Lemmon, 24, both of Ellwood City, on the payroll for jobs with no duties. They each pleaded no contest today to one count of false swearing for lying to the grand jury. They were each fined $3,000 and placed on probation, Miss Lemmon to 18 months and Ms. Barolomeo to 12 months.

"Were it not for the fact that this involved state government and taxpayers' money, it would be one of the less serious cases [before the court today,]" Judge Lewis told the women before their sentencing. "Unfortunately, we have a situation where there is public trust involved ... and that raises the seriousness of the case."

Mr. LaGrotta claimed they were going through 50 boxes of records from his 18 years in office, but the statewide grand jury said it found no evidence of them doing any work.

Some of the paychecks were later deposited into an account held jointly by Ms. Lemmon and Mr. LaGrotta, prosecutor Anthony Krastek said.

Mr. Krastek said records had been forged and the women were paid for work they never did.

Speaking briefly before the court, Mr. LaGrotta seemed to characterize the problem as a bookkeeping error, saying he made mistakes and that his records were disorganized. He said his sister and niece were not to blame for the errors.

As Mr. LaGrotta's relatives wept, Judge Lewis said the former state representative had violated the public trust.

He said Mr. LaGrotta's sentence was lower than it could have been because he has been cooperating with several grand jury investigations.

"You placed your niece and sister in positions of jeopardy. The consequences could have been very severe had there not been that cooperation,"

Since coming under investigation early last year, Mr. LaGrotta has cooperated with investigators looking into bonuses given to Democratic Caucus employees during the 2006 elections. The attorney general is investigating whether those bonuses were paid for work done on political campaigns, which would be illegal.

The grand jury found that Ms. Bartolomeo was paid as a full-time employee for more than four months in 2006, but she averaged only 20.5 hours per week. She was paid $19,329. She also worked as a full-time elementary school teacher during that time.

Ms. Lemmon was employed from September 2005 to January 2006 and received $6,216 for her no-duty job. Her pay included $2,262 for two weeks after she officially left Mr. LaGrotta's staff.

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.