LaGrotta's accuser explains why he turned on his former best friend

Jan. 29, 2008


By PAT LITOWITZ
New Castle News


(First in a series.)

Playtime with the neighborhood boy wasn’t fun.
“Frank came home and said ‘Terry doesn’t share well,’ ” recalled his mother, Loretta LaGrotta.

The minor dispute resolved itself, and the two children — Frank LaGrotta and Terry Shaffer — went back to playing outside their North Sewickley Township homes.

The pair bonded as elementary students in the Riverside Beaver County School District.

“We were close friends for a long time,” Shaffer said. “I think it probably started on the playground when neither of us could keep up with the other kids.”

Years later that would change.

LaGrotta went on to become a state representative in 1987. Four years after being elected, he asked Shaffer to join his Ellwood City staff.

“He had the public persona, and I was working behind the scenes,” Shaffer said. “We worked very well in that capacity.”

That was until Jaret Gibbons unseated the veteran legislator in the May 2006 primary. Gibbons won the November general election to represent the 10th Legislative District.

LaGrotta was out of office, and Shaffer looked to his friend to keep him employed. When that didn’t happen, Shaffer met with the state Attorney General’s office to discuss abuses within the state’s House Democratic Caucus.

A month after that meeting, the state convened a grand jury. Shaffer was its first witness, and LaGrotta its first indictment.

The Ellwood City resident is awaiting trial in Harrisburg on two felony counts of conflict of interests. His sister, Ann Bartolomeo, and Bartolomeo’s daughter, Alissa Lemmon, are each charged with false swearing for allegedly lying to the grand jury.

Attorney General Tom Corbett alleges that LaGrotta placed Bartolomeo and Lemmon on the payroll as ghost employees.

Stating he was under a court gag order, Frank LaGrotta said that neither he nor his sister or niece could discuss the case.

“(Shaffer) started this, and he lied and he lied,” LaGrotta’s father, Francis said. “I can’t understand the reasoning why he did it.

“They gotta know that (my son) did nothing wrong.”

His wife said the charges have placed the family in upheaval.

“All I want is peace,” she said. “I want this over with for my kids. I can’t tolerate it.

“I don’t want to get out of bed in the morning.”

Through their high school years, LaGrotta and Shaffer remained close.

LaGrotta encouraged Shaffer to join the high school’s debate team.

“I didn’t start until my junior year,” Shaffer said. “You normally started debate in ninth. Frank started in seventh grade.

“In our senior year, we were partners. We were pretty good. We finished second in the state.”

Loretta LaGrotta noted that her son was named the state’s best debater that year.

The pair also tried their hand at writing.

“For a while we were fantasizing about being screen writers,” Shaffer said. “We wrote really horrible screen plays.

“I still have copies of them laying around. You look at them now and just shake your head.”

Upon graduation, LaGrotta headed to Notre Dame, while Shaffer was awarded a scholarship to Duquesne University.

“I went to Duquesne for a semester,” he said. “When I couldn’t walk around anymore on the bluff (because of leg problems), I quit school.

“We stayed in contact, but we weren’t that close until I started working for him.”

Loretta LaGrotta said her son was concerned about Shaffer and wanted him to be a part of his staff.

“After he was in office, he kept thinking of Terry,” she said. “He asked (Shaffer) if he’d start writing letters for him. Then he asked him to come to the office a few times a week.

“They had been together for 15 years.”

A chance encounter reunited the pair.

“I didn’t basically see him at all when he was running for office initially,” Shaffer said. “He had already taken his legislative seat and had been there for about four years when I saw him one day at the hospital when I was going to visit my mother.

“He said he might have a job for me. My son was coming along pretty shortly after that, so I thought it might be a good idea to actually get a job and that was cool.”

With approximately 20 years serving in the House, the LaGrotta camp had assumed an air of invincibility. However, Gibbons changed that perception with an upset victory in the 2006 primary election.

LaGrotta’s support of a controversial pay raise in 2005 combined with a minimal campaign effort helped Gibbons win in a close vote.

“I was the one sitting at the desk counting the votes as they came in,” Shaffer said. “It was shocking.

“I don’t think anyone expected it. We were anticipating that he would be there indefinitely.”

What Shaffer didn’t know was that LaGrotta had planned to retire in 2008 if he had defeated Gibbons.

“That was going to be Frank’s last term,” Francis LaGrotta said.

However, the legislator often claimed he would retire, Shaffer noted.

“There were lots of times Frank would say ‘I’m going to retire and forget all this stuff.’ We sort of took it with a grain of salt because we didn’t believe he would actually do that.”

Despite LaGrotta’s ouster from office, Shaffer believed he and fellow staffer Kevin Bowser would remained employed with the House Democratic Caucus.

“Frank told us he had gotten that guarantee from Mike Veon.”

Veon served as state representative in Beaver County and as House Democratic whip. He was defeated in the November 2006 general election.

“All we wanted to do was to continue doing the work we were doing,” Shaffer said. “We were given the impression that was what was going to happen.”

In late November 2006, Shaffer and Bowser met with Gibbons to discuss ongoing matters in the district. They also discussed the possibility of joining his staff. Gibbons ultimately hired Bowser.

“There were some guarantees made to me about future employment, which, for whatever reason, were never honored,” Shaffer said.

While working for LaGrotta, Shaffer suspected the House Democratic Caucus was involved with questionable activities. However, he couldn’t prove any wrongdoing had taken place.

“What I talked to the attorney general about actually dealt with systemic abuses occurring within in Democratic leadership,” he said. “In order to get to those systemic abuses, I had to describe what I knew about what was happening with our particular office, which is what I could say definitely to them.”

Shaffer declined to go into further detail.

“I had not gone forward with what I knew about the situation because I feared how that might implicate Frank in a negative way,” he said. “I didn’t want to hurt him or his family but after several months of unemployment I didn’t feel it was my obligation to protect him.”

When LaGrotta was hired by the House Democratic Caucus in December 2006 to serve as an adviser, Shaffer was forced to wonder if he had been blackballed.

He believed LaGrotta had retaliated against him for wanting to work with Gibbons.

“I suspected but could not prove that he had some role in me not getting a job with the House Democrats.”

Francis LaGrotta rejected that assertion. He said his son was working behind the scenes in an attempt to get Shaffer work.

During an exchange of e-mails, Frank LaGrotta said he didn’t know why Gibbons had not hired him. LaGrotta suggested that political foe Ed Fosnaught, a former Lawrence County commissioner, was responsible.

Shaffer said that he butted heads with Fosnaught as a result of working for LaGrotta. He mentioned his concerns to Gibbons about Fosnaught. Gibbons replied that Fosnaught was a friend, but he would not influence his hiring decisions, Shaffer said.

Before visiting the attorney general with his allegations, Shaffer sent LaGrotta a scathing e-mail in March 2007.

The New Castle News obtained a copy of the correspondence.

“Hope all is going well with your ‘new job.’ Glad Manzo found the money for Jaret to hire Dennis Pietrandrea — although he couldn’t find the money to hire me. So happy. So happy.

“Your inestimable (expletive) never fails to amaze me. I have agonized over this for several months. Despite the way I’ve been treated by the people to whom I was loyal for fifteen years, I have chosen to keep my mouth shut.

“But this round of effluvium has pushed me over the edge.

“Tell Mr. Manzo that the Attorney General will be looking at the way leadership awards its contracts to DO employees. And don’t worry about where you’ll be staying for the next couple of years. You’ll be in jail. I’ve had enough. Go (expletive) yourself.”

Manzo is Michael Manzo, who was chief of staff to House Majority leader Bill DeWeese. Manzo resigned his post in November 2007 in connection with a state probe involving bonuses given to House staffers. Pietrandrea is a former Veon staffer.

Shaffer acknowledged sending the e-mail.

“It was the kind of e-mail one exchanges with someone one has known for 40 years,” he said. “It was not polite.”

Shaffer said things would have been different had he been kept on by the House Democratic Caucus.

“I’m no hero. If I would have still been working there, I would have kept my mouth shut and just tried to avoid being involved with that stuff.

“By the same token, I don’t feel guilty for what I did. I feel I did what I had to do, and I hope as this all comes out, the general population will agree this had to be done. Someone had to say something.”

As for his relationship with LaGrotta, he holds no expectation of reconciliation.

“I did consider him my best friend for a long time. I really don’t expect us to be buds again.”

(Tomorrow: An inside look at the LaGrotta family.)