Free Republic

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...