2-22 BONUSGATE - Foreman
FROM PENNLIVE
For years, brothers Jeff and Bruce Foreman operated in the shadows of power.
The siblings, once partners in the Harrisburg law firm Foreman & Foreman, were involved in key, and sometimes disastrous, decisions affecting state government and the city of Harrisburg.
Jeff Foreman is now a convicted criminal, his legal and political careers wrecked by his convictions in the so-called Bonusgate Capitol Hill corruption case.
Now, both brothers are preparing to testify on opposite sides of another high-profile trial in Dauphin County Court that is an offshoot of that scandal.
Prosecutors plan to call Jeff Foreman as a witness in the second corruption trial of ex-state Rep. Mike Veon, Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina said. It is expected that he will take the witness stand Thursday.
Jeff Foreman, who finished a prison term in October, was chief of staff for Veon, a former House Democratic minority whip. Veon is being tried on charges that he illegally diverted state funds channeled to the Beaver Initiative for Growth, or BIG, a nonprofit he founded to promote economic development in his home district in Beaver County.
Prosecutors claim Foreman & Foreman received a no-work $132,000 legal representation contract with BIG as a mark of Veon’s appreciation for Jeff Foreman’s political loyalty.
Dan Raynak, one of Veon’s lawyers, confirmed that Bruce Foreman, a former solicitor for the debt-wracked Harrisburg Authority, will be called as a defense witness in the trial.
Raynak wouldn’t say what Bruce Foreman’s testimony is expected to entail. “I don’t ever preview testimony,” Raynak said.
Still, there are indications that Bruce Foreman, who is an assistant solicitor for Dauphin County and a solicitor for several local municipalities, will be called by the defense in a bid to show that Foreman & Foreman did legitimate work for BIG.
The Foreman & Foreman pact with BIG is critical to the prosecution’s case since it made up the bulk of the more than $170,000 in state funds that Veon is accused of stealing in the BIG case.
Veon’s trial on charges including theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest entered its second day in Judge Bruce F. Bratton’s courtroom Tuesday.
The stakes are high for Veon, 55, who is serving a 6-to-14-year state prison term and has lost his state pension for his 2010 conviction in Bonusgate, where House Democrats awarded illegal state-paid raises to staffers for campaign work.
Former Veon aide Annemarie Perretta-Rosepink, another Bonusgate casualty and the ex-secretary of BIG, is being tried alongside him in the BIG case.
Jeff Foreman will be the first of the Foreman brothers to testify during Veon’s BIG trial, most likely this week.
A former intimate of Veon, that closeness cost him dearly when he pleaded guilty in Bonusgate. He testified as a prosecution witness during Veon’s first trial. Jeff Foreman had to forfeit his law license because of his felony convictions.
Although he has finished his 11½ to 23-month county prison sentence for his Bonusgate convictions, he is still serving three years of probation. Judge Richard A. Lewis also ordered Jeff Foreman to pay a $6,000 fine and $28,695 in restitution for his ill-gotten bonuses.
Jeff Foreman expressed regrets when Lewis sentenced him in December 2010.
“I’m disappointed in myself and the mistakes I made,” he told the judge during his sentencing hearing. “My problems are of my own making.”
Involved in incinerator deal
Bruce Foreman’s expected testimony in Veon’s trial will be his second turn on the witness stand in less than two months.
Now a partner in the Foreman & Caraciolo law firm, he testified in January in a federal civil trial over part of the Harrisburg incinerator’s $317 million debt that has pushed the city into state receivership.
Bruce Foreman was solicitor for the Harrisburg Authority, the burner’s owner, when much of the debt was amassed.
The civil trial in U.S. Middle District Court in January was over a lawsuit involving the authority and CIT Capital of New York over a $25 million financing deal for a failed incinerator refit in early 2006.
During his hours of testimony in the CIT case, Bruce Foreman repeatedly said he couldn’t remember details of negotiations leading up to that transaction.
“I don’t have a specific recollection,” was a phrase he uttered often, even when he was asked about documents he had endorsed or issued in the CIT deal.
For years, brothers Jeff and Bruce Foreman operated in the shadows of power.
The siblings, once partners in the Harrisburg law firm Foreman & Foreman, were involved in key, and sometimes disastrous, decisions affecting state government and the city of Harrisburg.
Jeff Foreman is now a convicted criminal, his legal and political careers wrecked by his convictions in the so-called Bonusgate Capitol Hill corruption case.
Now, both brothers are preparing to testify on opposite sides of another high-profile trial in Dauphin County Court that is an offshoot of that scandal.
Prosecutors plan to call Jeff Foreman as a witness in the second corruption trial of ex-state Rep. Mike Veon, Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina said. It is expected that he will take the witness stand Thursday.
Jeff Foreman, who finished a prison term in October, was chief of staff for Veon, a former House Democratic minority whip. Veon is being tried on charges that he illegally diverted state funds channeled to the Beaver Initiative for Growth, or BIG, a nonprofit he founded to promote economic development in his home district in Beaver County.
Prosecutors claim Foreman & Foreman received a no-work $132,000 legal representation contract with BIG as a mark of Veon’s appreciation for Jeff Foreman’s political loyalty.
Dan Raynak, one of Veon’s lawyers, confirmed that Bruce Foreman, a former solicitor for the debt-wracked Harrisburg Authority, will be called as a defense witness in the trial.
Raynak wouldn’t say what Bruce Foreman’s testimony is expected to entail. “I don’t ever preview testimony,” Raynak said.
Still, there are indications that Bruce Foreman, who is an assistant solicitor for Dauphin County and a solicitor for several local municipalities, will be called by the defense in a bid to show that Foreman & Foreman did legitimate work for BIG.
The Foreman & Foreman pact with BIG is critical to the prosecution’s case since it made up the bulk of the more than $170,000 in state funds that Veon is accused of stealing in the BIG case.
Veon’s trial on charges including theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest entered its second day in Judge Bruce F. Bratton’s courtroom Tuesday.
The stakes are high for Veon, 55, who is serving a 6-to-14-year state prison term and has lost his state pension for his 2010 conviction in Bonusgate, where House Democrats awarded illegal state-paid raises to staffers for campaign work.
Former Veon aide Annemarie Perretta-Rosepink, another Bonusgate casualty and the ex-secretary of BIG, is being tried alongside him in the BIG case.
Jeff Foreman will be the first of the Foreman brothers to testify during Veon’s BIG trial, most likely this week.
A former intimate of Veon, that closeness cost him dearly when he pleaded guilty in Bonusgate. He testified as a prosecution witness during Veon’s first trial. Jeff Foreman had to forfeit his law license because of his felony convictions.
Although he has finished his 11½ to 23-month county prison sentence for his Bonusgate convictions, he is still serving three years of probation. Judge Richard A. Lewis also ordered Jeff Foreman to pay a $6,000 fine and $28,695 in restitution for his ill-gotten bonuses.
Jeff Foreman expressed regrets when Lewis sentenced him in December 2010.
“I’m disappointed in myself and the mistakes I made,” he told the judge during his sentencing hearing. “My problems are of my own making.”
Involved in incinerator deal
Bruce Foreman’s expected testimony in Veon’s trial will be his second turn on the witness stand in less than two months.
Now a partner in the Foreman & Caraciolo law firm, he testified in January in a federal civil trial over part of the Harrisburg incinerator’s $317 million debt that has pushed the city into state receivership.
Bruce Foreman was solicitor for the Harrisburg Authority, the burner’s owner, when much of the debt was amassed.
The civil trial in U.S. Middle District Court in January was over a lawsuit involving the authority and CIT Capital of New York over a $25 million financing deal for a failed incinerator refit in early 2006.
During his hours of testimony in the CIT case, Bruce Foreman repeatedly said he couldn’t remember details of negotiations leading up to that transaction.
“I don’t have a specific recollection,” was a phrase he uttered often, even when he was asked about documents he had endorsed or issued in the CIT deal.