After five weeks of testimony, the defense in the so-called Computergate public corruption trial of a former state lawmaker and his ex-aide boiled down to some simple concepts Monday.
View full sizeBrett FeeseAttorneys for former state Rep. Brett Feese and Jill Seaman insisted in closing arguments that blame for the scandal rests with ex-state House Speaker John Perzel, who conceived the scheme to use state-paid computer services to enhance GOP election campaigns.
Seaman’s lawyer, William Fetterhoff, insisted that the 59-year-old Dauphin woman was a mere secretary with limited knowledge of, and no influence over, the course of the scandal.
Feese, her ex-boss, wasn’t in the loop, either, his attorney, Joshua Lock, contended.
Chief Deputy Attorney General Frank Fina countered that Fetterhoff’s and Lock’s final pleas to the jury were laced with “distortions and downright falsehoods.”
He is contending that Seaman and Feese, 57, of Lycoming County, were enmeshed in the illegal conspiracy that diverted $13 million in public funds.
“We all know who the victims in this case are; the people of Pennsylvania, the taxpayers,” said Fina, who is to continue his closing argument today.
Once Fina is finished, Judge Richard A. Lewis will send the case to the Dauphin County jury.
View full sizeJill SeamanSeaman and Feese are the only Computergate defendants to go to trial.
Perzel and seven other GOP officials pleaded guilty in the case. Several of them, including Perzel, testified for the prosecution during the trial of Feese and Seaman on charges including theft, conspiracy and conflict of interest.
Neither Fetterhoff nor Lock denied that the Computergate thefts occurred. They insisted, however, that Seaman and Feese weren’t part of the con.
“The evidence is overwhelmingly in her favor that she is not guilty, not guilty of anything,” Fetterhoff said in a three-hour closing statement.
Seaman took notes at meetings where the illicit computer deals were discussed and issued emails and handled documents regarding campaign work done on the public’s dime, but was an outsider nonetheless, Fetterhoff said.
The prosecution used “sinister innuendo” to try to exaggerate her role, he said.
Seaman, like many other workers of the House Republican Caucus, was a pawn of Perzel and his handful of powerful co-conspirators, Fetterhoff said. He said that clique executed the Computergate scheme from 2000-07 with the knowledge of few on Capitol Hill.
“It’s hard to overstate the power held by John Perzel during this period of time,” Fetterhoff said. “John Perzel has the power to do what he wanted to do.”
Although she was in meetings where pieces of the conspiracy were discussed, Seaman “never said a word. She sat there and took notes,” he said. She just did what she was told, he said, wasn’t an instigator or a decision-maker.
“Mrs. Seaman does not become guilty by her mere presence at those meetings,” Fetterhoff said.
He said Perzel’s machinations resulted not in long-term political advantage but in a “tragedy” that ruined many lives.
“If he had chosen to serve his oath of office rather than his own ambition, we would not be here today,” Fetterhoff said.
“Jill Seaman was not an accomplice. She was not a co-conspirator. She is not a criminal. Jill Seaman is a victim in this case,” Fetterhoff said. “I am asking you to give Jill Seaman her good name back.”
Lock also laid the blame on Perzel during a closing argument that lasted all afternoon. He argued that Perzel kept knowledge of the conspiracy to a “small, self-selected, secretive” group of cronies.
Feese was kept ignorant of its details and scope even when he became head of the House Republican Campaign Committee years after the scheme began, Lock said.
“The notion that everybody in the House Republican Caucus was involved in this wrongdoing is nonsensical on its face,” Lock said.