HARRISBURG (AP) — The lawyer for a former information technology supervisor said Thursday the evidence against his client should lead to his acquittal as closing arguments began in the Pennsylvania legislative corruption trial.
Attorney Bill Fetterhoff ticked off a list of topics from the six-week trial that were not linked to Keefer: nominating petition challenges, the use of hefty bonuses to get people to volunteer for campaigns, phone banks to call voters and the use of state workers to produce reports on the backgrounds of political opponents.
He said prosecutors did not prove the graphic arts services Keefer provided for campaigns were performed on state time, or that Keefer had control over computer contracts that were used to send out blast e-mails to aid candidates. Fetterhoff said Keefer lacked any intent to break the law.
“He is not a criminal, he is a victim,” Fetterhoff told jurors. “He has lived with this for more than two years, the anxiety and the stress, the expense, the weeks of preparation, the weeks of trial. He’s a good and decent man — I’m asking you to give him his life back.”
Keefer and his one-time boss, former state Rep. Mike Veon, are on trial in a Harrisburg courtroom with two other former state legislative aides, charged with theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest in what prosecutors say was a scheme to use taxpayer funds and state workers to help Democrats win political campaigns.
Veon was the whip, the second-ranking position in the House Democratic caucus, before his defeat in the 2006 election. Seven others who were arrested with the defendants in 2008 pleaded guilty to related charges in January, but the lone defendant to have gone to trial, former Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver, was acquitted in December.
The second lawyer to make a closing argument Thursday, Bryan Walk, describe his client Brett Cott, a former Veon legislative aide, as a skilled and dedicated campaigner but a man with no supervisory authority.
“Am I standing here telling you he didn’t campaign? Absolutely not — we know that was his life,” Walk said. But he said any e-mails for campaigning were minimal and did not constitute a crime.
“He’s a hardworking, dedicated employee,” Walk said. “Were there some faults up there at Mike Veon’s office? Yes. Should they have kept better leave tracking records? Yes. Not Mr. Cott’s job.”
Mike Palermo, attorney for Annamarie Perretta-Rosepink, who once ran Veon’s Beaver Falls district office, was scheduled to go third, followed by Veon lawyer Dan Raynak.
It could be Friday until prosecutors get to wrap up their case. That will be followed by jury instructions that are expected to be lengthy and then deliberations by the four men and eight women who make up the Dauphin County jury.
