Even in their hour of shame, some of the key figures in the Bonusgate scandal showed their arrogance and their enjoyment of the spoils of their alleged ill-gotten gain.

House Minority Whip Mike Veon left his July 11 hearing in the passenger seat of a big, black Cadillac Escapade. Annamarie Peretta-Rosepink, his Beaver Falls district office administrator, left in "a waiting BMW." It resembled former Enron executives leaving a federal courthouse in Houston.

Veon's only comment to reporters after being charged with more than 65 counts of theft, deception and conspiracy that carry up to 381 years in prison and a fine of $805,000: "Not today. Not here. Maybe another time, another place."

Hey, doesn't someone out there in that crowd have a Ford Escort they could lend Veon for a few hours? Didn't Veon learn anything about PR in his 24 years in Harrisburg?

Not that state Attorney Tom Corbett's crew got everything exactly right. In what appeared to be a serious case of overkill and playing to the TV cameras, the state attorney general agents handcuffed Veon and the others who were indicted even though all the suspects had turned themselves in as the AG requested and these alleged white collar criminals were no danger to the officers, the reporters or the public.

The supervisor in charge of the agents, Deputy Attorney General James Reeder, said that handcuffs were required under regulations because the suspects were all being charged with felonies, rather than misdemeanors. Still, it appeared to be a blatant play to the TV cameras for which Corbett was duly scolded by some newspapers.

Other media observances of the fallout from Bonusgate was that one player was still on the payroll after her reported misdeed while another, a whistle-blower, is out of a job and facing foreclosure on his home.

As first reported by WHTM-TV in Harrisburg, Angela Bertugli, the former House intern, is still on the Democrats' taxpayer-subsidized payroll as a $45,344-a-year research analyst. The blond beauty queen, a former Miss Rain Day 2001 in Greene County, conducted a three-year-long affair with Mike Manzo, DeWeese's chief of staff who allegedly co-conspired with Veon as masterminds of a scheme to use taxpayer dollars to fund a large and illegal campaign machine that operated inside the confines of the caucus. Bertugli was 21 back in 2004 when she met the married Manzo, than 35, in a Harrisburg bar while she was a summer intern for the caucus. They shared drinks that first night and then reportedly had their first sex in his car. Manzo arranged for her to have a little-work taxpayer job when she returned to school in Pittsburgh. But her main duty was to have sex with him when he was in town, Bertugli reportedly told the attorney general's grand jury. By 2006, her salary had risen 42 percent to $30,000 and she got a $7,000 bonus to boot. Later, when she transferred to Widener Law School in Harrisburg, Manzo secured for her a job in the caucus as a research analyst under Jennifer Brubaker, another of those charged in the scheme. DeWeese has defended her continued employment, noting that she cooperated with authorities and told the truth.

Angela Bertugli

Meanwhile, Terry Shaffer, an aide to former state Rep. Frank LaGrotta, is unemployed after blowing the whistle on his boss's putting his sister and niece on his staff in do-nothing jobs - ghost pay rolling. He left the state payroll in late 2006 after LaGrotta lost re-election.

After Shaffer fingered LaGrotta for ghost pay rolling of his relative, LaGrotta found himself in the hot seat. At that point, he apparently pointed them to the larger scandal that had already started to emerge in newspaper exposes - Bonusgate - the payment with taxpayer money of bonuses and regular salary for campaign work for the Democratic House caucus.

It's two years later and in job-strapped Lawrence County where Shaffer worked he has not found new employment and his house is about to be foreclosed on. Still, Shaffer is proud of his whistle-blower role and has "absolutely no regrets" about coming forward, he told John Baer of the Philadelphia Daily News who first reported the saga.

"If people don't step up now and work for change, they don't deserve good government," Shaffer told Baer.

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After the storm
House Majority Leader takes the brunt of the fallout from Bonusgate indictments but Rep. Ramaley also feels the heat

Since criminal charges were filed in the legislative Bonusgate probe two weeks ago, House Majority Leader Bill DeWeese has widely proclaimed that the grand jury reports in that wide-reaching investigation have vindicated him of any wrongdoing.

All along, the Greene County Democrat has said that he was unaware of any link between caucus staff bonuses and campaign work, despite a letter going out under his signature to staffers in 2006 to keep their bonuses secret because others did not receive one.

On July 10, Attorney General Tom Corbett charged DeWeese's closest legislative ally, former House Minority Whip Mike Veon, D-Beaver, and DeWeese's former chief of staff Mike Manzo, along with 10 others, for allegedly using millions of dollars of official work hours for campaigns and paying taxpayer-funded bonuses to staffers for campaign work.

Fifty-nine counts were alleged against Veon, and 47 counts against Manzo.

The 10 others charged in Corbett's probe include Rep. Sean Ramaley, D-Beaver, who is running for an open state Senate seat in Beaver County, and 10 former or suspended House Democratic staffers.

So far, the fallout from those charges has landed heavily on DeWeese, as some House Democrats began publicly questioning whether he should continue leading their caucus.

Ramaley has also felt pressure from Western Pennsylvania Democratic insiders to relinquish the Democratic nomination for his Senate race but so far he has firmly refused. He is accused of taking a no-work job in 2004, under Veon's supervision, as Ramaley campaigned for his House seat.

Western Pennsylvania Democrats worry that those charges could hurt Ramaley's chances in a reliably Democratic Senate district, if negative publicity from the Bonusgate charges taint voters' views of him. After all, the success rate of candidates running while under indictment is, well, not very good.

In DeWeese's case, the majority leader isn't budging from his perch atop the caucus, even as many House Democrats worry that his continued leadership could hurt their chances of retaining the House majority in this fall's elections. DeWeese has maintained that Veon, Manzo and the other staffers acted behind his back, without his knowledge of the alleged illegality. DeWeese was downright jubilant in a conference call with his fellow Democratic leaders on the day the charges were announced. According to a report last week from Capitolwire.com., the Harrisburg-based Internet news service, DeWeese on a conference call the afternoon of July 10 with other caucus leaders, said it was "one of the best days of my life!"

Bill DeWeese

The weeks since then have been anything but the best of days for DeWeese.

So far, five House Democrats have publicly called for his resignation or ouster as House Democratic leader.

DeWeese's response is a familiar one: "I feel this report vindicates me and I really believe that our leadership team for the last 17 months has handled this terrible crisis in the best way conceivable," he told The Associated Press last week.

In the Capitolwire story, he wrote in an e-mail that his comments about July 10 being "one of the best days of my life!" were taken out of context.

"That is a mischaracterization of what I said!!!" DeWeese wrote to Capitolwire. "What I did say was taken completely out of context and that was that the grand jury confirmed what I had been saying for months and months and months - that the scheme was carried out behind my back and without my knowledge. In fact, it was one of the saddest days of my life."

Three of the five House Democrats to call for DeWeese's removal from leadership so far actually took that position months ago in a private caucus retreat back in January.

Two of them are longtime DeWeese critics - Reps. Bill Keller, D-Philadelphia, and John Yudichak, D-Luzerne - while the third - Rep. Dan Frankel, D-Pittsburgh - has had no history of animosity with DeWeese but was concerned then that his continued leadership could hurt the caucus's efforts to hold onto the majority.

Rep. Harry Readshaw, D-Allegheny, another longtime DeWeese critic, wrote an open letter last week also calling for DeWeese to resign.

The fifth House Democrat to call on DeWeese to step down, Rep. Matt Smith, D-Allegheny, like Frankel, has had no history of ill will with DeWeese. Smith is the only House Democratic freshman so far to publicly call for DeWeese's ouster or resignation.

Yudichak told Capitolwire last week: "If [DeWeese] does not do the right thing, and step aside, then we come back in the fall, there will be an effort to reorganize. Keller and Frankel and I made our piece known several months ago. Now it is clear there is no other course than to call for reorganization if he will not do the right thing."

Readshaw wrote in his open letter: "Where does the ultimate responsibility for the fostering of such an atmosphere lay? ... In the House Democratic Caucus that responsibility lays with the Democratic Leader - at least it should, but in this instance, the buck is being passed. Whether the Democratic Leader was knowledgeable of the alleged corruption or (was) ignorant of it, he should be held accountable that it evolved under his leadership. The most honorable approach would be for the leader to acknowledge that gross error and step down.

"... I have consulted with enough of my Democratic colleagues to know that the failure to recognize the facts will only exacerbate the damage."

Smith, who discussed the situation at a press conference in suburban Pittsburgh last week, said in a statement: "The time has come for Rep. DeWeese to relinquish his post as Majority Leader for the good of the caucus, the Democratic Party, the General Assembly, and most importantly Pennsylvania taxpayers."

And more House Democrats say privately that DeWeese has become a distraction for the caucus and should step down.

The problem for House Democrats is figuring out how to make that happen.

DeWeese is refusing to give up his leadership post, and many in the caucus are reluctant to start, in the words of Rep. Mike McGeehan, D-Philadelphia, an inter-caucus "civil war."

"This is not the time for a civil war among Democrats, in my view," McGeehan told Capitolwire. "... With gas and milk at $4 a gallon, we should be attacking Republicans, so we can help working people by keeping the majority and adding more House Democrats."

Meanwhile, Corbett has said he expects to file more charges in the ongoing probe. When asked whether DeWeese knew about any of the activities at the center of the more than 100 pages of grand jury reports, Corbett said two weeks ago: "The investigation is ongoing."

And then there is DeWeese's re-election challenge from Republican Greg Hopkins, who came within just over 1,000 votes of beating DeWeese in the 2006 election, when DeWeese was under fire for his role in the pay raise of 2005. (See accompanying story this issue.)

Now, Hopkins, a former Arena Football star, believes that voters are ready for a change - despite DeWeese's having 100 times as much campaign cash on hand than Hopkins, $202,000 to just over $2,000 for the Republican, according to the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review.

Like DeWeese, Ramaley isn't backing down in the face of the criminal charges filed by Corbett. He plans to stick it out in the Senate race against Republican Elder Vogel, a little-known local farmer, to succeed retiring Sen. Gerald LaValle, D-Beaver. The challenge, of course, is for Ramaley to introduce himself to voters in three-fourths of the Senate district, beyond the quarter of that district where voters already know him as their state representative. With Bonusgate headlines and perp walk photos of him in handcuffs, the question is just how much that will color voters' impression of him. But Ramaley maintains his innocence and plans a vigorous fall campaign. And despite any pressure from the Democratic powers that be, the decision to stay in the race or to bail out is his alone. They can not force him to relinquish his nomination.

Sean Ramaley