In a previous post SOP wrote about questionable donations to Tom Leighton's campaign when he ran for Mayor of Wilkes Barre. One of those donations was from Robert Mericle.
Robert Mericle gave a $300.00 donation on 06/10/2009 listed on page 19 and was charged by the U.S. Attorney's office on 08/13/2009. It had been common knowledge that Mr. Mericle was Participant No. 2 in a complaint filed by the U.S. Attorney on January 31, 2009 in the Luzerne County corruption scandal. Why did Tom Leighton accept the donation and why wasn't it returned?
Bill O'Boyle of the Times Leader writes an article today about a "midnight $20,000.00 donation" from a PAC associated with Paul Kanjorski to Tom Leighton's Senate campaign against State Representative John Yudichak. The real story will come out when Leighton's campaign finance report makes it to the Luzerne County website. Apparently Leighton is a little light in the fundraising arena and Kanjorski made the donation to bolster his report.
There is no secret of the love lost between Yudichak and Kanjorski after Yudichak's father stood up to a politician who has no shame and takes no blame for wasting the taxpayers' money on his own family. Mr. Yudichak had, not lets make that has the courage and human values not to accept and sit back while a politician tries to spoon feed the public on an issue that just won't go away. Kanjorski maintains that he was never charged in the Cornerstone Technologies issue and he is right about that. But he was judged by the public such that in the race between himself and Corey O'Brien the Times Leader editorial staff has not forgotten the incident and backed O'Brien in their primary battle.
If there were more Joseph Yudichak's in this world maybe the corruption in Luzerne County would have been in check a long time ago.
Look for our next post about how the House Majority Leader's assistant and campaign Treasurer doesn't know how to circulate nominating petitions.
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