Wednesday, March 18, 2009

PA Turnpike Chief's Link To Fumo Raises Questions

Fallout from the Vince Fumo guilty verdict is raining down in Harrisburg. Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission Chairman Mitchell Rubin has an integrity problem that seems to be snowballing according to the Allentown Morning Call.

March 18, 2009
HARRISBURG | - Gov. Ed Rendell said Tuesday he will review whether the chairman of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission should keep the job despite income he received from a taxpayer-financed consulting job controlled by former Sen. Vince Fumo, whom a federal jury convicted of 137 corruption charges.

Also Tuesday, Senate Majority Leader Dominic Pileggi, R- Delaware, called on commission Chairman Mitchell Rubin to explain why he should not resign the post and return the money he received from the consulting work that Fumo's prosecutors called a ghost job.

The pressure on Rubin came a day after a federal jury in Philadelphia convicted Fumo on all the charges against him, two of which focus on Rubin's separate $30,000-a-year, five-year contract with Senate Democrats, which ended in 2004.

The case against Fumo did not involve Rubin's Turnpike Commission post, and Rubin, 57, was not charged with any wrongdoing. Rubin was initially nominated to the Turnpike Commission in 1998 by then-Gov. Tom Ridge, a Republican.

Rubin's wife, Ruth Arnao, a longtime Fumo aide who ran the community group, also was convicted Monday of all 45 counts against her, including obstruction.

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