Posted on 10/04/2009 7:08:15 PM PDT by Born Conservative
Barton J. Weidlich had access.
The Pittston businessman, a confidant of former county manager/chief clerk Sam Guesto, used a special security clearance to gain employees-only access to the Luzerne County Courthouse, earned more than $100,000 in county business and worked the county tax-claim system to buy a dozen properties and turn a 4,900-percent profit on a home in Hazleton, according to county officials and records.
All despite being a convicted felon.
Weidlich, 40, spent four months in a New Jersey prison in 1996 after being convicted on a cocaine charge in Morris County, N.J., near Newark.
Now he is back behind bars, in the Lackawanna County Correctional Facility awaiting arraignment on an obstruction of justice charge stemming from the ongoing federal investigation into Luzerne County corruption.
Weidlich testified before a federal grand jury Sept. 15, a week after federal agents seized boxes of Guesto's records from a Weidlich-owned property in Pittston.
But county records show Weidlich was more of a player in Luzerne County government than mere record keeper.
Weidlich's JPW Construction Management Inc. received more than $53,000 from July 2006 to December 2008 for various odd jobs, such as rearranging and installing desks, installing and removing doors, constructing walls and painting floors.
Weidlich's Roadside Advertisements Inc. received more than $63,000 for providing billboard and bench advertising, but fell out of favor with county officials after the company filed two lawsuits in September 2008 alleging the Luzerne County Convention and Visitors Bureau failed to honor advertising contracts and owes the company more than $168,000.
The bureau claimed its board of directors did not authorize the contracts and alleged the company failed to meet obligations.
County Solicitor Vito DeLuca said Saturday that he, Commissioner Maryanne Petrilla and Manager/Chief Clerk Doug Pape would review the Roadside lawsuit in light of Weidlich's arrest and that the county would eventually file a motion to intervene.
DeLuca said the county would also review its policy on security passes, which allow people to bypass courthouse metal detectors and - depending on their level of clearance - access to non-public county offices, a courthouse annex, the Penn Place, Bernard C. Brominski buildings and the commissioners' offices on the first floor of the courthouse.
"A security pass is kind of an oxymoron in Luzerne County it seems," County Solicitor Vito DeLuca said.
In addition to his companies' business with the county, Weidlich also profited from private transactions he and business partner John Altobelli, a county probation officer, made in the county's tax claim office, according to county records and bureau employees.
Weidlich, who officials said was given special access to an employees-only area and county computers during his visits to the tax claim office, successfully bid on a dozen tax-delinquent properties in 2007 and 2008.
Weidlich and Altobelli paid a total of $15,934 in repository-sale transactions for 11 vacant lots in Pittston, Butler Township, Hughestown and Courtdale and a residence in Hazleton.
Weidlich and Altobelli paid $915 for the home, located on a 2,800-square-foot plot of land at 315 E. Beech St. in Hazleton.
They completed the deal, which required payment only of tax claim office fees, in June 2007 - despite an earlier $915 offer from another prospective purchaser. They sold the home 14 months later for $45,000.
Hazleton City officials said no building permits were issued for the home within the last three years, indicating no improvements were made to the property between the time Weidlich and Altobelli purchased it and the time they sold it to Christopher and Amanda Hvidza. The Hvidzas did not return telephone messages last week.
A tax-claim office file on the East Beech Street property contained no record of the bid from Weidlich and Altobelli, or of the tax clearances the county was required to obtain on their behalf from the local taxing bodies, Hazleton City and the Hazleton Area School District.
The file did contain a Feb. 22, 2007 bid on the property from Hazleton resident Frank Ciampi Jr. and tax clearances obtained on his behalf by the tax office two weeks later.
Ciampi, who did not return several telephone messages, withdrew from the purchase after he learned of Weidlich's interest in the property, according to an undated, handwritten notation on the property file.
The director of the tax claim office, Beth Ann Christian, said Weidlich and Altobelli's bid could have been placed in another file if they bid on several properties at the same time, but none of the files on their other properties contained records on the East Beech Street purchase.
Only two of the files contained anything resembling a bid - handwritten notations on a tax office printout indicating a price next to the nickname office employees often used for Weidlich, "Bart."
"When Weidlich used to come in there, I got a call a couple times that (a tax claim employee) had him in the back on the computer," Commissioner Stephen A. Urban said.
Weidlich and Altobelli could not be reached by telephone Saturday.
Federal agents requested files from the tax claim office and the county controller's office in August, weeks before asking county officials to provide copies of the e-mail accounts belonging to Guesto and former Budget Director Sam Diaz.
Guesto resigned as manager/chief clerk in January 2008 after the disclosure that Guesto failed to document how he and six other officials used debit cards to spend almost $42,000 in county funds, but resurfaced as an administrator in the county court system before eventually being laid off in March. Diaz left the budget office in March 2008, for a position with Commonwealth Medical College in Scranton.
Diaz oversaw the tax claim office from 2006 until his resignation in March 2008 - the same time Weidlich and Altobelli were scooping up cut-rate properties.
"Every day is interesting in the county," DeLuca said. "I do believe that as each indictment comes down, as each arrest is made, that the county is a better place for it."
Asked if he expected more arrests in the corruption investigation, DeLuca reacted matter-of-factly: "Oh yes, absolutely."
Isn’t it interesting that all of the cities that are rife with CORRUPTION are Democrat cities, including D.C.?
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