HARRISBURG - Jury selection began yesterday in the first trial in Pennsylvania's legislative corruption scandal, but the process was expected to consume a second day and delay opening statements until tomorrow.
"We're not moving along as quickly as I'd hoped," Dauphin County President Judge Richard Lewis said after presiding over six hours of interviews with potential jurors for the trial of former State Rep. Sean Ramaley.
Twelve jurors and four alternates will be picked from a pool of 34. Only 16 people qualified for that pool yesterday.
The trial could last through next week, Lewis advised the potential jurors.
Ramaley, a Beaver County Democrat, is accused of taking a no-work state job in 2004 that paid more than $2,500 a month and allowed him to concentrate on his first legislative campaign.
He was one of a dozen people connected to the House Democratic caucus who were charged by the state Attorney General's Office in July 2008 with diverting taxpayers' money and resources to political campaigns.
Ramaley is charged with four counts of theft, one count of conflict of interest, and one count of conspiracy stemming from the money and other resources that then-Democratic Whip Michael Veon allegedly made available to him during his 2004 campaign.
Yesterday, Ramaley's lawyer, Philip Ignelzi, quizzed the prospective jurors at length about their awareness of generous bonuses that House Democratic leaders allegedly handed out to staffers for work on political campaigns and whether they held strong opinions about legislators and other politicians.
Ramaley was the only sitting legislator among Democrats charged in the case. He abandoned plans to run for the state Senate after his arrest in July 2008 and left the House when his term expired that year.
Last month, Attorney General Tom Corbett charged 10 members of the House Republican caucus, including former Speaker John M. Perzel of Philadelphia, with similar offenses.
News Source:philly.com
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