Bill DeWeese

HARRISBURG — The use of legislative employees to work on state Rep. Bill DeWeese’s election campaigns was pervasive, and it was critical to his winning a tight re-election race in 2006, his former top aide testified Tuesday at DeWeese’s corruption trial.

“I can’t see any scenario (in which) he would have won that race if it wasn’t for the legislative folks out there,” said Michael Manzo, who served as chief of staff to DeWeese when he was the House Democratic floor leader.

DeWeese even ordered the firing of a caucus staff member who he thought had failed to work hard enough on the campaign to retain a House seat Republicans took over in 2006, Manzo testified on the trial’s second day.

Manzo, a key prosecution witness, and DeWeese are among more than two dozen people who have been arrested in a wide-ranging, multiyear public corruption investigation. Manzo testified as part of a plea agreement with the state attorney general’s office.

DeWeese, a 35-year House veteran who once served as speaker, is accused of illegally using legislative employees for political campaigning and fundraising. He is charged with theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest.

A key question is whether taxpayer-paid employees did campaign work on state time, as state prosecutors allege, or instead did it while they were off the public clock on compensatory time off or some other type of leave — as permitted by state policy — but without filing paperwork to document that time, as DeWeese’s lawyer has suggested.

DeWeese ramped up his campaign operations in 2006, when voters were angry over the Legislature’s clumsy attempt in 2005 to raise members’ pay, and opened two additional field offices in his sprawling southwestern Pennsylvania district.

Previously, “he didn’t have any presence in those areas at all,” said Manzo, who described the expansion of district operations as a political move.

On Election Day, he said, staff members in the district offices were directed to be at the polls handing out literature to help keep their boss in office for another two years.

“This was very much an expectation,” said Manzo.

Kevin Sidella, a top DeWeese aide whose duties largely involved handling his campaign fundraising, testified that DeWeese envied the large numbers of legislative employees that Democratic whip Mike Veon of Beaver County — the No. 2 party leader in the House — typically mustered to help with his re-election campaigns.

“He wanted an army of legislative staffers to be in his district for the general election, just like Veon had,” said Sidella, who estimated that about 60 percent of his legislative work time was devoted to campaign business in 2006.

Veon, who lost his House seat in that election, is serving a six- to 14-year sentence in state prison after being convicted in 2010 of corruption charges stemming from the same investigation.

DeWeese was re-elected in 2006, but many other incumbents were ousted, including the Democrat whose defeat was blamed on the staff member DeWeese fired. The caucus pumped hundreds of thousands of dollars into the campaign only to lose the seat to the GOP, Manzo said.

“Bill was angry. We were all angry,” he said.