Bonusgate: In court, Lavelle details fundraising activities

By Alex Roarty, PolitickerPA.com Reporter

HARRISBURG -- Testimony given by "Bonusgate" defendant-turned-witness Patrick Lavelle Jr. was swept away when Michael Manzo, the former chief of staff to House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese, took the stand Wednesday to give his explosive testimony.

But the former aide to House Minority Whip Mike Veon (D-Beaver County) gave a detailed account in a Court of Common Pleas in Dauphin County of what he alleges was his nearly full-time job as his boss' fundraiser while ostensibly working as a state employee.

Lavelle raised about $2.5 million for Veon, he testified, organizing fundraisers under the direction of his boss and Jeff Foreman, a former Veon aide. Anna Marie Perretta-Rosepink, who sat 15 yards from Lavelle as a defendant while he testified, helped him organize the events, he said.

Perretta-Rosepink assigned staffers in Veon's office to help him organize fundraisers, Lavelle testified.

Organizing a fundraiser, particularly one that celebrated Veon's 20th anniversary in the General Assembly, took a "significant amount of work," he said -- as many as "hundreds of man-hours."

He described one event where he testified each fundraising table received "a bottle of wine, a bunch of candies and a cigar."

Lavelle, along with Manzo, was charged in connection with "Bonusgate" in July. He cut a deal with prosecutors to drop four of the six charges against him in exchange for his testimony.

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