PA Senator Larry Farnese Charged In Vote Buying Scheme
PHILADELPHIA (CBS) -- Pennsylvania State Senator Larry Farnese has been charged in connection to a vote buying scheme.
The United States Justice Department announced the charges on Tuesday and said that Farnese, 47, and a Pennsylvania Democratic Party official were charged for their involvement in a bribery and fraud scheme.
According to the announcement, the scheme took place in connection to the 2011 election for Democratic Ward Leader for Philadelphia's Eighth Ward.
Farnese and Ellen Chapman, 62, were charged with conspiracy, mail fraud, wire fraud and violations of the Travel Act. The indictment explains that at the time of the alleged illegal activity, Farnese was a Pennsylvania State Senator and a candidate for Democratic Ward Leader. It states that Chapman was a member of the Eighth Ward Democratic Committee.
The two allegedly devised a bribe scheme where Farnese paid $6,000 to a college study-abroad program for Chapman's daughter. In exchange, Chapman allegedly agrred to use her position to support Farnese in the election, even though she allegedly intended to support a different candidate originally.
According to the indictment, campaign funds were used for the payment and the money was listed as a "donation," on the campaign's finance report.
Farnese's attorney, Mark B. Sheppard released the following statement following the indictment:
"Larry Farnese is 100 percent innocent of these novel charges and expects to be fully exonerated. There is no allegation that Senator Farnese misused his office or government funds nor that he accepted any gift or kickback. These charges have no connection whatsoever to his Senatorial office.
Rather, the Senator stands accused of making a contribution from his campaign account to a deserving young student's scholarship fund in exchange for the support of the student's mother in a party ward election. The government makes these charges despite the fact that the donation was properly reported almost five years ago; was given some five (5) months before a unanimous ward vote in which the Committeewoman did not even participate; and no other committee person has claimed to have been offered anything of value by Senator Farnese.
The application of federal law to circumstances such as these are not only novel (and what we believe to be the first of its kind), it is also dangerous. The government seeks to extend the reach of prosecutors well beyond accepted constitutional grounds and into areas of purely local party organizational politics.
In an oral argument last month, the Supreme Court questioned prosecutors' attempts to criminalize well accepted political activity.
As the Justices noted, politics in the real world is based on relationships, and public officials routinely advocate and provide support for constituents. That is all Senator Farnese is accused of here - performing a regular and appropriate part of being a community and political leader that the government would now like to be declared illegal.For those reasons, we expect Senator Farnese's complete exoneration."
