HARRISBURG -- A statewide grand jury has accused former Pennsylvania Speaker of the House John Perzel in a wide-ranging corruption probe that started with the House Democrats and today crossed the aisle to include the Republicans.

Mr. Perzel was charged with 82 counts in connection with a series of computer service contracts totaling more than $9 million in taxpayer funds. Attorney General Tom Corbett said that while the taxpayer-funded contracts ostensibly were for House members' official duties, much of the data eventually found its way into campaign data banks for incumbent legislators.

Charged with Mr. Perzel, who represents part of Philadelphia, was his former chief-of-staff, Brian Preski and former state Rep. Brett Feese, who served as the highest paid House employee.

In all, 10 people were charged with counts ranging form theft to obstruction of justice to criminal conspiracy in the case.

Mr. Perzel issued a statement before Mr.Corbet's news conference was over denying the charges.

"First and foremost, I am innocent of the charges against me," the statement said. "I have faithfully served the people of my district, my city and my state for more than 30 years, and I have never used public funds for my personal or political gain.

"Second, this investigation has lasted for nearly three years, and it's only now, on the eve of his gubernatorial campaign and in response to claims that he was unfairly pursuing only Democrats, that Attorney General Corbett has decided to bring charges against 10 Republicans, including me. It smacks of political opportunism at the expense of my reputation, and I am going to fight very aggressively to prove my innocence."

Asked about Mr. Perzel's statement accusing him of using the prosecution to boost his gubernatorial bid, Mr. Corbett flatly refused to respond.

"Why should I?" he declared.

The grand jury found that the scheme apparently began after Mr. Perzel narrowly won re-election in 2000. After that, prosecutors said, he vowed to keep a campaign office in operation year-round.

That was when he hired his brother-in-law, Samuel "Buzz" Stokes, to be in charge of the year-round campaign position. Another defendant, Don McClintock, of Voorhees, N.J., was placed in charge of the office.

In some instances, the grand jurors found that Mr. Perzel's operation included attack-style "robo calls" against some of his own members on a dozen occasions.

Grand jurors also said Mr. Perzel used House staff members to perform campaign fundraising during work hours, sometimes using government computers.

One staff member in Mr. Perzel's Philadelphia office told the grand jurors "fundraising was made part of my job."

Charges against Mr. Feese center on obstruction of justice allegations.

On Feb. 26, 2008, state agents served a subpoena for any Perzel records reflecting campaign work by state employees.

Mr. Feese, Mr. Perzel and two other aides are alleged to have sneaked the boxes out of the state Capitol building.

Mr. Feese also is accused of concocting notes on an in-house investigation by the Republican leadership that purport to show that he knew nothing about the plot when, in fact, he was a participant.

Mr. Corbett, in announcing the charges today, said the Perzel scheme that utilized taxpayer-funded technology was known as the "Blue Card" program.

Among the charges against Mr. Perzel was placing his brother-in-law, Mr. Stokes, on the caucus payroll when grand jurors found that Mr. Stokes worked exclusively for Mr. Perzel's campaign.

Over a six-year period that Mr. Perzel headed the House Republican caucus, Mr. Stokes was paid more than $196,000 in taxpayer funds while doing only campaign work.

The major theft allegations against Mr. Perzel and several of the others, center on House Republican caucus contracts with two database firms: Aristotle International, of Washington, D.C., and GCR and Associates of New Orleans.

Jurors said that the databases were used extensively for campaign purposes.

"One of the largest and most successful of the campaign programs produced by GCR was called 'Candidate Connect,'" which Mr. Corbett said was the brain-child of Elmer "Al" Bowman, an aide to Mr. Feese and a regular spokesman for the House Republican Campaign Committee.

The project, Mr. Corbett said, was exclusively political.

"Perzel punished a group of House Republican members ... by directing a series of untraceable robo calls," Mr. Corbett said. "The calls were scripted in an extremely damaging way against the representative."

Grand jurors said GCR was paid $3,200 in taxpayer funds to develop the calls each time Perzel ordered them to be made.

While the computer contracts likely passed the $10 million mark in what the attorney general believes was misused by Mr. Perzel and his co-conspirators, Mr. Corbett told reporters that was not the thing that bothered him the most.

"If there's one thing in all of this that annoys me? Obstruction's the worst," he said. "You're interfering with people finding out what truly happened. As we pointed out, there's a lawyer involved."

More details in tomorrow's Pittsburgh Post-Gazette.

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