Ex-Pittsburgh police chief pleads guilty
PITTSBURGH — Former city police Chief Nathan Harper pleaded guilty to federal charges that he conspired to steal police funds deposited into unauthorized credit union accounts and willfully failed to file income tax returns.
Harper, 60, will be sentenced Feb. 25. He has since filed belated tax returns from 2008 to 2011, when prosecutors say much of the money was stolen, and paid much of the $22,000 the government was owed for those years.
Harper’s plea punctuated a remarkable fall from grace for a man his attorneys, Robert Leight and Robert DelGreco, called a “sweetheart” who succumbed to the “irresistible temptation” of having access to credit accounts that shouldn’t have existed.
Although he pleaded guilty to conspiracy, federal prosecutors and Harper’s attorneys have refused to say who else was involved.
Harper joined the city’s police in 1977 and rose through its ranks before Ravenstahl appointed Harper to the $105,000-a-year chief’s job after taking office in 2006.
