LaGrotta missing boxes of documents

February 2, 2008

By PAT LITOWITZ
New Castle News

(Fifth in a series.)

A red Dumpster once contained Frank LaGrotta’s trash and his best defense against two ethics charges.

That was until the garbage hauler emptied it.

The state’s case against the former Ellwood City legislator and two relatives involves boxes of documents — or rather their absence.

As a result, LaGrotta will answer to two conflict of interest charges.

One count alleges that the one-time 10th District House representative used his position to provide personal financial gain for his sister, Ann Bartolomeo. The second count contends LaGrotta was listed on a savings account in which Alissa Lemmon’s state paycheck was deposited.

Lemmon is Bartolomeo’s daughter and LaGrotta’s niece. They are each charged with one count of false swearing for allegedly lying to a state grand jury.

Attorney General Tom Corbett said the pair were paid approximately $27,000 for work they did not perform.

The Beaver County Times reported Thursday that the three are going to enter pleas Monday in Dauphin County Court.

Excluding statements from LaGrotta’s family, three independent sources reported seeing boxes that the grand jury stated didn’t exist. New Castle News employee Erica Mihok photographed LaGrotta’s office on Nov. 17, 2006.

Her photos show approximately 10 boxes. In addition to the boxes, she observed expanded file folders in the office’s conference room.

“Obviously, you can tell they were packing,” Mihok said. “There were a lot of boxes. There was a lot of packing going on.

“You couldn’t even walk into Frank’s office without either stepping ... toward the couch or on a box or sitting on something. You had to watch where you walked.”

The News assigned Mihok to photograph LaGrotta and his staff as they prepared to leave their Ellwood City district office on Lawrence Avenue.

LaGrotta lost his seat to Jaret Gibbons in the May 2006 Democratic primary. Gibbons went on to win the November general election.

“We wanted to get photos of him moving out, since Jaret won his seat,” the Kent State University graduate said.

Mihok added that she did not look into the boxes or file folders.

LaGrotta staff volunteer Sam Scialdone recalled that LaGrotta was a stickler when it came to keeping records.

“I know that he kept record after record,” he said. “A lot of constituent work that had to be sorted.

“You’d be surprised at what people asked for. Everything was documented. Anything of a personal nature was saved.”

Scialdone noted that after the primary election loss, the conference room became a storage area.

“Eventually, everything was taken back to the conference room. I saw boxes.”
The former Ellwood City resident claimed that he also witnessed Bartolomeo working on files in her home.

“She did that work,” he said. “You had to have someone with patience.

“She would have been a good scrapping-booking person.”

LaGrotta’s father, Francis, said that when Gibbons entered the Democratic primary, his son decided to retire if he had won in May. As part of that decision, the legislator closed his account at Gateway Commerce Center in Wampum.

In its report, the state grand jury said investigators went to the underground storage facility and interviewed employee Debbie Sudano.

“According to Agent (Robert) Gift, Sudano told him that LaGrotta never kept boxes at the storage facility. In fact, she said, the Wampum mines was particularly ill-suited, because of its humidity, to safely store paper documents.”

If that’s the case, it came as a surprise to Lawrence County administrator James Gagliano.

He said that for the last 25 years the county has used the facility. Gagliano said records from the county commissioners, prothonotary’s office, domestic relations and treasurer’s office are stored there.

On its Web site, the company says it offers climate-controlled storage.

Sudano declined comment when contacted by The News.
“There were boxes,” Francis LaGrotta said. “Don’t ask me how many. If I saw one, I could have saw 100.

“I just threw them on the truck.”

Campaign signs and boxes filled three pickup trucks, LaGrotta said. Those materials were delivered to Bartolomeo’s home.

An inspection of state campaign expense reports shows Frank LaGrotta used Gateway Commerce to store signs. The earliest report available goes back to 1994.

LaGrotta’s former chief of staff, Kevin Bowser, said he was concerned his boss would not have the office closed by Nov. 30, 2006.

“I did have conversations with him in July (2006), and I asked him specifically how we were going to handle getting rid of all this junk,” he said. “He told me he would handle his own stuff.

“He did not want us going through his materials.”

Seven months earlier, LaGrotta asked Bowser to help clear out his space at the mines.
“He called me up on a Friday or Saturday, because I have a truck, and asked me if I could clear out the mines because he was going to end his lease there,” he said.

“I have hockey on Sunday, and said ‘Can not do. Hockey’s my day. He said ‘No problem, I’ll get my cousin Nick or Mike to help out.’ ”

By Nov. 30, LaGrotta’s office had yet to be emptied. Bowser said LaGrotta thought he would have additional time to leave. He had believed Gibbons would want to rent his office and purchase his furniture.

“We looked at that location,” Gibbons said. “We didn’t like the set up of it.

“The location was OK, but I wanted to be closer to the main area of the business district. I didn’t make a decision on the site until mid-December.”

Gibbons said he did a five-minute walk-through of the office. He also looked at furniture, but he declined to make a purchase.

“I wasn’t comfortable with the office in the first place. It felt like a doctor’s office. I wanted a customer-friendly office.”

He didn’t remember what items were in the office at the time.

When LaGrotta went to The Uni-Center office on the morning of Dec. 1, he found that he had been locked out.

“I knew he wasn’t going to get out, and I kept telling him he better start doing something,” Bowser said. “Nov. 30 came and went, and he called me at my house.
“He says the doors are locked.”

The Human Services Center, located in New Castle, owns the Ellwood City building. Dave Alden, who oversees the center’s properties, said the lockout was not intentional.

“I would have assumed we would have given him time to get his belongings,” Alden said.

“Frank had been a long-term tenant, and we never had a problem in any way, shape or form.”

Alden said that the locksmith used by the center had apparently changed the locks sooner than expected.

Bowser said that family issues kept LaGrotta from tending to his paperwork and belongings.

“His father had been in and out of the hospital,” he said. “During the last week, he was in the hospital.”

On Dec. 4, 2006, Bowser helped LaGrotta clear out the office. Earlier that day, a local church picked up some furniture that LaGrotta had donated.

“I went over there, and the place was a mess,” he said. “Boxes of stuff in the conference room, his own room. I don’t know how many boxes.”

At that time, LaGrotta asked Bowser, who became Gibbon’s chief of staff, if the newly elected representative would want his files.

“The thing Frank did say to me was, ‘Do you think he would want the boxes?’ And I said ‘No, let him get his own.’

“I just grabbed boxes and walked them out to the Dumpster and filled it up.”
Bowser said he did not look at the contents.

“If you’re throwing stuff, I’m not going to stop to look at them. I filled it up, and wasn’t there that long.

“He said he was going to get Wright’s to haul the rest of the stuff away.”
The state grand jury reported that Jim Wright of Wright’s Hauling denied removing paper documents.

A person who answered the phone for Wright’s Hauling declined to comment.

“However meaningless the work claimed to have been performed by Lemmon and Bartolomeo, the documents they claimed they worked on simply did not exist,” the grand jury reported.

In an e-mail provided by Francis LaGrotta, his son contracted the House archivist, Heidi Mays, on May 18, 2007.

LaGrotta wrote that he had organized 50 to 60 boxes of material. He said they contained newspaper clippings, House committee papers, letters and other documents.

“The prosecutor calls it ‘faux work’ that I manufactured to pay someone — he insists it was unnecessary,” he wrote. “In your professional opinion, did I follow procedure as outlined in the manual that your office sent?”

Mays responded, “In my opinion, I don’t believe that you did anything wrong or inappropriate.”

Mays then recalled that she sat next to LaGrotta during a meeting in which archiving procedures were discussed.

When contacted by The News, she declined to comment. A House researcher then called The News to say its department never received documents from LaGrotta.