The state Supreme Court on Tuesday vacated the 2012 conviction of longtime Beaver County state representative Mike Veon on public corruption charges.

The justices ruled a Dauphin County judge erred when he told jurors that Veon did not have to gain financially to be convicted of violating the state’s conflict-of-interest law. The Supreme Court said that the crime must involve a financial benefit, and that intangible political benefits are not sufficient.

Once the No. 2-ranking Democrat in the state House, Veon, 59, was convicted in 2010 as part of the state attorney general’s Bonusgate investigation of corruption in the Legislature and was sentenced to the State Correctional Institution at Laurel Highlands. He served five years before being released in June 2015 for good behavior.

But he has spent years appealing a 2012 conviction on charges relating to the misuse of grants directed to his not-for-profit organization, Beaver Initiative for Growth. That conviction carried a prison term of one to four years and a financial penalty of court costs, fines and $119,000 in restitution to the state.

That conviction, the high court said Tuesday, has been thrown out and the financial penalty voided.

“We are elated,” said Joel Sansone, Veon’s attorney. “An innocent man spent a lot of time in jail.”

Veon had contended that the state grants he procured for BIG were used to operate offices in Midland and Pittsburgh’s South Side to serve his constituents.

The high court said the lower court ruling that Veon’s “intangible political gain” constituted a “private pecuniary benefit” was “unduly broad.”

Mr. Sansone said the court’s decision — which was unanimous in its conclusions, though some justices differed on some of the ruling’s points — centered on the state law against elected officials committing conflict-of-interest for “private pecuniary benefits.”

The law, Mr. Sansone said, was intended to prevent politicians “from lining their pockets.” But the prosecutors had expanded that ban to include “intangible political gain” such as favorable publicity.

The ruling said the prosecution used “a meat axe” when “a scalpel should reasonably be taken to be the law.”

“The trial court’s jury instruction here made of the statute a meat axe,” the judges said, “finding (or creating) a conflict of interest on every dais, at each parade, and at every ribbon-cutting, given that the very nature of seeking to satisfy one’s constituents and secure re-election all but requires the taking of official action to secure intangible political gains. This criminalization of politics is a bridge too far.”

Mr. Sansone said it is conceivable that prosecutors might pursue a retrial, but he said it was unlikely as it could be argued as being double jeopardy.

“If the prosecution handles this properly, they will walk away from this as they should have in the first place,” he said.

A spokesman for the attorney general’s office said that it was reviewing the decision.

As a state representative, Veon served residents of Beaver County for 22 years, eventually becoming minority whip in the House. In 2010 he was charged with 19 counts relating to corruption and conflict of interest. He was found guilty of using taxpayer resources for political campaigns and sentenced to six to 14 years in prison.

Veon, who could not be reached for comment, has said he has moved on from his legal battles in his work as a lobbyist and consultant. Now a resident of Pittsburgh, he attended the Democratic National Convention in July in Philadelphia, where he was warmly greeted by old friends.

Mr. Sansone said the prosecution of Veon was politically motivated and “ridiculous.”

“There was no gain to him in money or anything else,” he said Tuesday. “The trial court made a mistake in allowing the prosecutors to twist the law. He never took a penny, ever. There was never any evidence in either trial that he ever gained anything. We see this as total vindication in this long, ugly fight.”

Dan Majors: dmajors@post-gazette.com and 412-263-1456. The Associated Press contributed.

First Published: November 22, 2016, 11:17 p.m.