Former state Senate Democratic Leader Robert J. Mellow left a federal courtroom teary-eyed Friday after a judge allowed him to spend the holidays with his family but sentenced him to spend 16 months in a federal prison starting next month.
U.S. District Judge Joel H. Slomsky also ordered the longtime political powerhouse to pay a $40,000 fine and a $100 special assessment and to repay the $79,806.17 that his use of Senate staffers for political work cost state taxpayers.
Mr. Mellow had already paid the Internal Revenue Service $31,748 in unpaid taxes, penalties and interest for underreporting his income on the 2008 sale of the building that housed his Blakely Senate office. The tax charge was part of the single count of conspiracy to commit mail fraud and to file a false tax return that he pleaded guilty to in May.
At the defense's request and with no opposition from federal prosecutors, Judge Slomsky agreed to let Mr. Mellow report for prison Jan. 15.
A repentant Mr. Mellow addressed the court before the sentence in the first words he has publicly spoken about the case since his guilty plea.
"I'm extremely sorry for what has taken place," Mr. Mellow said, his voice shaking before a courtroom full of his family, friends, and other supporters whose presence he noted. "I'm embarrassed and ashamed of what has taken place. I've let them down, and I'm very, very sorry, and I will be for the rest of my life."
With that Mr. Mellow sat down and heard Judge Slomsky impose a sentence the judge called one of his "most difficult" because of the former senator's contributions to the community.
As Mr. Mellow left the courtroom, he patted one of his lawyers, attorney Sal Cognetti Jr., on the back and put his arm around him. They walked to a private room and met with U.S. Marshal Martin J. Pane.
Mr. Mellow emerged, still visibly upset, and headed back to the courtroom with Mr. Cognetti. Soon after, they exited with family members and friends who also had been crying. Just before walking out of the courthouse to face a throng of cameras and reporters, Mr. Mellow declined to comment on his sentence.
"I don't think so, thank you," he said.
Afterward, Mr. Cognetti said the verdict was disappointing. U.S. Attorney Peter J. Smith said it was appropriate.
Sentencing guidelines called for 18 to 24 months in prison. Mr. Mellow's lawyers asked the judge for probation or no worse than home confinement while federal prosecutors wanted him sentenced to the full 24 months.
Mr. Mellow's lawyers spent more than 90 minutes arguing against prison time.
Citing more than 200 letters from Mr. Mellow's supporters, attorney Daniel T. Brier said his client was the kind of man willing to give his coat to a homeless man; donate food, clothing, toys and money to those who needed it; and 10 percent of his adjusted gross income each year to charity.
The donation of income totaled $157,000 between 2002 and 2009, four times the average for people who earned as much as he did, Mr. Brier said.
Mr. Mellow also mentored many and offered to donate a kidney to an organ bank, an offer refused because of his history of skin cancer.
"There was nothing cynical about it. It was not to a family member," Mr. Brier said. "It was an incredible act of charity."
Mr. Brier said his client also should not do prison time because of his age, 69, and a history of skin and bladder cancer, hypertension and heart troubles that could recur.
He quoted a doctor who said Mr. Mellow had already "exceeded his life expectancy."
Mr. Brier saved his most impassioned plea for an argument revolving around the care of Mr. Mellow's 39-year-old adopted daughter, Melissa Mellow. She suffers from a form of muscular dystrophy that "has advanced to an end stage," suffered a stroke in 2011 and has "neuro-psychological problems with severe anxiety," he said.
Mr. Brier said Mr. Mellow did not want his lawyers to bring Melissa into the case, but they insisted.
He said she relies heavily on her father. She calls him several times a day, visits with him several times a week and gets anxious even when she can't immediately reach him. Without her father around, she would suffer "dire consequences" from stress that would worsen her physical condition, Mr. Brier said. He quoted a letter from Mr. Mellow's other adopted daughter, Tressa Bargella.
"My sister would have no quality of life at this point if not for my dad," Mrs. Bargella wrote. "She is scared to death of losing her father, and I am scared to death of losing my sister."
In the midst of Mr. Brier's argument, Mrs. Bargella left the courtroom.
Mr. Cognetti asked Judge Slomsky to consider his client's years of public service, saying he was "honored and privileged to represent him."
"This man has spent 40 years as a dedicated public servant," Mr. Cognetti said. "This is a man who had the ability to walk with the most accomplished among us, but never forgot the least accomplished."
He quoted a letter from Monsignor Joseph Quinn, the well-known priest from Scranton, who wrote that Mr. Mellow "genuinely wanted to ease the burdens of others."
He quoted another letter from a woman who said he helped her get a nursing job at Children's Hospital of Pennsylvania. He quoted a letters praising Mr. Mellow from people on both sides of the political aisle - from former Attorney General Gerald Pappert and former Senate President Pro Tempore Robert C. Jubelirer on the Republican side, former Gov. Ed Rendell and state Auditor General Jack Wagner on the Democratic.
Mr. Rendell watched Mr. Mellow "reduced to tears" when listening to a constituent in need, Mr. Cognetti said.
Mr. Cognetti challenged prosecutors' broad use of the word "corruption" in describing his client, pointing out Mr. Mellow was never accused of taking bribes or kickbacks.
He said Senate staffers were political appointees and their activities often fell into "gray lines," noting the state General Assembly allocated money for its operations to each major party's caucus.
"To me, that connotes politics," he said.
He argued the lines of right and wrong were never clear until the conviction in December 2005 of state Rep. Jeff Habay of Allegheny County for using staff to do political work. That, he said, "changed the landscape."
Mr. Mellow, he said, was caught up in "a cultural change" in what is considered a crime.
Mr. Cognetti brought up Mr. Mellow's annual picnic, which prosecutors said Senate staffers often worked on the public dime.
"The picnic was not a salute to Bob Mellow," he said. Rather, it brought together 5,000 people a year and candidates and elected officials of all stripes.
It was the mingling and networking that went on at such events that helped Mr. Mellow developed the contacts necessary to bring $2.3 billion in state money to the region, Mr. Cognetti said.
He compared Mr. Mellow to President Abraham Lincoln, the subject of a popular new movie.
"In the first hour of the movie, Lincoln violated about 15 criminal statutes," Mr. Cognetti said. "He did it to get the 13th Amendment (prohibiting slavery) passed. I'm not saying Bob Mellow is Abraham Lincoln."
But sometimes "the speed(ing) sign was down" in Mr. Lincoln's case as in Mr. Mellow's, he said.
Judge Slomsky interrupted, pointing out that Mr. Habay's conviction clarified what was right and wrong and the use of Senate staff for political work went on anyway.
"I guess my response to that is it's like turning a ship around," Mr. Cognetti said.
Mr. Cognetti attributed "95 percent" of the illegal activity to an unnamed former director of the Senate Democratic Caucus granted immunity from prosecution. He disputed prosecution suggestions that Mr. Mellow's case is anything like that of former state Sen. Vincent Fumo of Philadelphia.
Mr. Fumo is serving a 61-month jail sentence after being convicted of 137 counts of conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice and tax violations and defrauding taxpayers of $3.5 million.
Mr. Cognetti suggested prosecutors overreached in comparing Mr. Mellow to Mr. Fumo and tried to make Mr. Mellow "guilty by association." He said Mr. Mellow had suffered enough through the loss of his reputation and loss of his pension and urged the judge to avoid giving into "a mob mentality" to punish him.
Mr. Mellow is appealing the loss of his $139,858-a-year pension.
Assistant U.S. Attorney Francis Sempa said he wasn't suggesting Mr. Mellow's crimes were as serious as Mr. Fumo's, only that one count was similar - the use of Senate staff for political work. He acknowledged Mr. Mellow undoubtedly produced a lot of benefits for the region and acted charitably for many. But some of Mr. Mellow's good works were no more than "what friends do for their friends," he said.
He said none of Mr. Mellow's medical problems is serious enough to meet the standard of "extraordinary" in federal sentencing guidelines as defense lawyers argued.
The issue of Mr. Mellow's daughter "is the most sympathy evoking, the most difficult one this office had to deal with," he said. But Mr. Mellow isn't his daughter's primary caregiver; his former wife, Diane, is, Mr. Sempa said.
"She's the one who takes care of her daily needs," he said. And Mr. Mellow was often separated from his daughter when he was in Harrisburg on business.
"Frankly, disruptions and difficulties and emotional hardships are in the punishment of a crime," he said. "It's something that happens in every case."
He said prosecutors would not oppose housing Mr. Mellow in a federal prison camp nearest his home so his daughter could regularly contact him.
Mr. Sempa said Mr. Mellow continued to break the law even after Mr. Habay's conviction. He did that despite knowing the state Ethics Commission long warned legislators against such practices.
"The reaction to Habay was not an attempt to fix what was going on," he said. "Instead, he did all he could to hide it."
Mr. Mellow had memos drafted showing staffers' hours were reduced because they were doing political work when they spent all their time doing political work, Mr. Sempa said. One staffer spent half his time dedicated to working on Democratic Senate candidates' political campaigns.
In another instance, a Senate staffer installed a donated satellite radio in Mr. Mellow's home. In still another, three Senate staffers were called up from Harrisburg to "paint the bathroom of a friend" of Mr. Mellow's.
Mr. Mellow had staffers set budgets for Democratic Senate candidates and work with political consultants and had the Senate graphics office print signs for his picnics, which were fundraisers that staffers planned for on public time long before they took place.
The woman who ran the graphics office said she printed signs for other senators, but Mr. Mellow "more than any other senator," Mr. Sempa said.
Mr. Mellow, he said, showed "a serious disrespect for the law."
"And what makes it worse is he's a leading legislator when he's doing it," Mr. Sempa said. "The handwriting (on what was legal) was on the wall for all to see and Mr. Mellow ... arrogantly ignored it."
Judge Slomsky acknowledged points made by both sides, but said Mr. Mellow breached the public trust "when he knew he was wrong."
"No man, no woman, regardless of the power you have in this society has a right to violate the law. If that was the case, we'd have chaos," the judge said.
Steve McConnell, a Times-Tribune staff writer, contributed to this story.
Contact the writer: bkrawczeniuk@timesshamrock.com