Federal prosecutors want former state Senate Democratic Leader Robert J. Mellow imprisoned for two years because he ran his Senate office like a political organization, using its staff and resources for election campaigns and fundraisers, including exploring having him run for governor.
Mr. Mellow never ran for governor, but Senate staffers searched for dirt on political opponents in Senate campaigns, recruited Democratic Senate candidates, oversaw candidate nominating petition signature drives, developed budgets and wrote news releases and campaign commercial scripts for political campaigns, organized Election Day get-out-the-vote efforts and organized fundraisers for Mr. Mellow and former state Sen. Raphael J. Musto, according to a sentencing memo submitted Monday by U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith.
Senate staffers even had "campaign and fundraising signs, cards, pamphlets for Mellow and other senators and candidates" printed in the Senate graphics office.
All between 2006 and 2009, all on Senate time or using its resources, and regularly with the senator's input.
The cost to taxpayers: $79,806.17, money Mr. Mellow should be forced to repay, Mr. Smith contends.
"When a powerful and influential lawmaker breaks the law and abuses the public trust, the best way to promote respect for the law is to significantly punish the lawmaker by imposing a substantial prison sentence," he wrote. "Mellow, a long-serving legislative leader, set a terrible example by betraying the trust of his constituents and the public."
Lawyers for Mr. Mellow's filed their own memo saying he should not serve any time behind bars. One, attorney Daniel T. Brier, declined to comment on the prosecution memo.
"I haven't seen it," Mr. Brier said.
The prosecution memo also reveals that "Senate staffers did personal chores for the Mellow and his family and friends during Senate work hours," though it is not specific about that.
The memo names none of the Senate staffers, at least some of whom could testify Friday when Mr. Mellow is due in U.S. District Court in Scranton for a sentencing hearing at 9:30 a.m.
Mr. Mellow pleaded guilty in May to conspiracy to commit mail fraud by using Senate staff to do political work and to file a false tax return that understated how much money he made when he sold the building that housed his Peckville Senate office. That understatement cost taxpayers more than $16,000 more. Mr. Mellow has already paid the Internal Revenue Service $31,748 in tax, penalties and interest.
The blueprint for Mr. Mellow's behavior was laid out in a 2001 document titled "Quest for the Majority," which states that Mr. Mellow "assigned two higher-level Senate staffers" to help Democrats regain control of the state Senate, Mr. Smith wrote.
The approach to the 2006 election focused on regaining Senate control for the Democrats and "was planned, systematic and organized," according to the memo. Democrats had been in the minority in the Senate for more than a decade, leaving Mr. Mellow as Senate minority leader all that time after a brief time as Senate president.
Senior Senate staff members, with the senator's input, recruited candidates and oversaw signature drives for nomination petitions carried out by lower-level Senate aides. Senior and mid-level staffers in Harrisburg participated in the creation of campaign memos for each targeted Senate race.
They "interacted routinely with political consultants, pollsters and strategists," which helped Mr. Mellow and other Senate leaders to decide which races should get more attention and resources.
"Mellow reviewed with senior Senate staff and approved budgets for each campaign backed by the DSSCC in 2006. A senior Senate staffer disbursed and accounted for campaign funds," Mr. Smith wrote. "Senate staffers supervised by Mellow wrote news releases, talking points and scripts for political ads for candidates."
DSSCC is the Democratic State Senate Campaign Committee, whose mission is helping elect Democrats to the Senate.
Senate staffers also briefed candidates on election issues, stuffed envelopes for fundraisers, worked directly with campaigns for up to six weeks at a time, put up campaign signs and dropped off campaign literature.
In August 2006, 20 Senate staffers spent an entire work day "running a campaign school in Plymouth Meeting."
It didn't work. Democrats kept losing seats in Senate elections and did not pick up any until this year. Mr. Mellow left office in 2010.
All that political work on the public dime wasn't just for other candidates.
"At least four Mellow Harrisburg Senate staffers were involved in exploring a Mellow for governor campaign in 2007," Mr. Smith wrote.
There were also regular fundraisers for Mr. Mellow's chief campaign committee, Friends of Bob Mellow.
"Each year from 2006 through 2009, Senate staffers from the (local) offices and some from Harrisburg planned, organized, coordinated and worked at the Friends of Bob Mellow annual picnic fundraisers ... golf fundraisers" and a joint fundraiser with Mr. Musto's campaign committee, Mr. Smith wrote.
The annual Mellow picnics, held on Montage Mountain, were renowned in the local political world for drawing thousands of people, including many of Harrisburg's most powerful politicians and numerous statewide candidates seeking to tap into local campaign networks.
The pursestrings for Friends of Bob Mellow were controlled by a district office staffer, who wrote checks, compiled information for campaign finance reports using a computer program paid for by a Senate contract, wrote thank-you letters to donors, sold tickets to fundraisers "and used Senate office space, equipment and resources" to do it.
"As the fundraising events approached, the amount of work devoted to them by district office staff increased, but district office staff worked on (Friends of Bob Mellow) matters throughout the year, using Senate equipment and facilities," Mr. Smith wrote. "This is confirmed by district office staffers and hundreds of documents and emails seized from Mellow's district office."
One staffer recalled that Mr. Mellow insisted the staffer attend his golf fundraiser instead of meeting with numerous Senate staffers who were facing layoffs because of budget cuts. The layoffs were done by telephone.
Mr. Mellow also tried to hide what he was doing, according to Mr. Smith.
He submitted or had someone else submit job classification forms or re-classification forms that described Senate staff doing Senate work but left out the political work they were doing on Senate time.
Mr. Smith contends the senator deserves time behind bars because he arrogantly ignored past warnings against using staff in violation of the state Ethics Act.
In 2002, an Allentown Morning Call newspaper story mentioned that a Mellow Senate staffer used a Senate phone to try to recruit a Democratic candidate to run for the Senate. The newspaper reported that Mr. Mellow "publicly scolded the staffer" and said all staffers should know they shouldn't use "Senate equipment on Senate time for political purposes."
"He reportedly also remarked that he was going to reiterate this prohibition in a memo to all Senate staffers and in the Democratic Caucus Handbook," Mr. Smith wrote.
The handbook, written under Mr. Mellow's supervision, lays out the Ethics Act's prohibitions against "use of public facilities or equipment for political purposes."
In 2005, a jury convicted state Rep. Jeff Habay of Allegheny County of using Senate staff for political work.
In 2007, former state Sen. Vincent Fumo of Philadelphia was indicted for using Senate staff to benefit himself and newspapers were filled with stories of state investigations of Bonusgate, the practice of paying legislative staffers taxpayer-funded bonuses for doing political work.
None of that discouraged Mr. Mellow from violating the law even while the investigations were going on, Mr. Smith wrote.
When a Senate staffer tried to talk to him about the Habay conviction and Mr. Fumo's indictment, Mr. Mellow's only reaction was, "I'm not Fumo, Fumo's a criminal."
"In this case, Mellow demonstrated an arrogant contempt for the law," the U.S. attorney wrote.
Many times, Mr. Mellow was "more than willfully blind" about all the political work his staff did; "in many instances he directed the activity usually acting through senior staff."
Routinely, a Senate staffer typed fundraising letters during the work day and gave them to Mr. Mellow to sign. Sometimes, political memos were written on Senate stationary. In one instance, a secretary in the Peckville district office delivered a $12,000 check from Mr. Mellow's campaign committee to the Democratic State Senate Campaign Committee in Harrisburg.
"The staffer was so annoyed that Mellow was asking him to do political work in the wake of Fumo and Bonusgate that he took a photo of the check Mellow handed to him," Mr. Smith wrote.
One staffer told investigators the use of Senate staff was a deliberate effort to save campaign money.
Mr. Mellow screamed at a staffer who didn't raise enough money at a fundraiser.
"Mellow (also) instructed a Senate staffer to get more campaign money from lobbyists, especially those lobbyists Mellow had 'taken care of,'â" Mr. Smith wrote. Pointing out that Mr. Mellow pleaded guilty, Mr. Smith said a two-year sentence is warranted because Mr. Mellow "placed his own political ambitions above the public's trust."
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com