Veon challenging use of e-mails in trial
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HARRISBURG -- Defense attorneys are trying to sink the state's case against former state Rep. Mike Veon before it even begins.
The trial scheduled to begin Tuesday centers around some 60,000 e-mail messages purporting to show that political work was done on state time and that more than $1 million in tax dollars were distributed as bonuses to compensate staffers for campaign work.
"Defendant Veon objects to the blanket introduction of potentially tens of thousands of e-mail documents which have not been properly authenticated," defense attorneys Joel Sansone and Daniel Raynak wrote in a brief filed yesterday in Dauphin County Common Pleas Court.
They argue that there is no way to document the authenticity of the e-mail messages and have concerns that the evidence was supplied by state Rep. Bill DeWeese, who they call a co-conspirator in the bonus scheme.
Mr. DeWeese, D-Waynesburg, was not implicated in the bonus scheme but was charged more recently in connection with the hiring of two aides who allegedly worked on campaigns rather than legitimate legislative work.
"There can be no question that he was aware that millions of dollars of bonuses had been paid out. There is also no dispute that Mr. DeWeese hired several lawyers to comb through the requested documents and decided what he did and did not want to provide, citing legislative privilege for many documents," wrote Mr. Sansone of Pittsburgh and Mr. Raynak of Phoenix. "All of this evidence is tainted because it was produced by an individual who had and has a strong motive to distort or withhold the truth contained in these and other documents."
It will be up to Dauphin County Common Pleas Judge Richard Lewis to decide whether the e-mail messages are admissible.
Prosecutors argue that excluding them could jeopardize their whole case against Mr. Veon and former legislative aides Brett Cott, Stephen Keefer and Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink.
Exclusion would "terminate or substantially handicap the prosecution," Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina wrote in a court filing Dec. 29.
Mr. Veon represented Beaver County in the Legislature for 22 years. He is among 25 people charged so far in the ongoing Bonusgate investigation, which so far has resulted in seven guilty pleas and one acquittal.
First Published January 13, 2010 1:33 pm
