DA outlines costs he seeks from Orie
PITTSBURGH — Prosecutors want former state Sen. Jane Orie to pay up to $780,000 in penalties when she’s sentenced on conflict of interest and other charges for using her former state-funded staff to do political campaign and fundraising work over an eight-year period.
The demands are in a 68-page sentencing memorandum filed by Allegheny County Assistant District Attorney Law Claus late Tuesday and posted on the DA’s website today.
The memo does not detail how much prison time, if any, Claus believes Orie should receive for misusing her staff and forging defense documents, which led to two trials before she was convicted March 26 of five felonies and nine misdemeanors.
The jury found Orie used her staff to raise more than $1.8 million for her campaign and to work her re-election campaigns in 2002 and 2006 — and that she forged documents used to discredit a key witness before a mistrial was declared on the campaign corruption charges last year.
“I’ll present our position on any incarceration at the time of the sentencing itself,” Claus said.
Judge Jeffrey Manning is scheduled to sentence Orie June 4, though he’s also been asked to rule before then on a previous prosecution motion that Orie also repay $1.3 million that Claus contends the state Senate — in other words, taxpayers — spent on Orie’s defense.
