In tapes, LBJ accuses Nixon of treason

Johnson thought meddling derailed planned Vietnam peace talks on eve of 1968 election, according to final recordings made public.

By Mark Lisheron
AMERICAN-STATESMAN STAFF
Friday, December 05, 2008

Just days before the pivotal 1968 presidential election featuring Vice President Hubert Humphrey's bid to succeed him, President Lyndon Baines Johnson suspected Humphrey's Republican opponent, Richard Nixon, of political sabotage that he called treason, according to the final recordings of Johnson's presidency to be publicly released.

As Johnson tried to arrange peace talks between North and South Vietnam on the eve of the election, he and his closest advisers received information indicating that Nixon allies had asked that South Vietnam avoid peace talks until after the election, the tapes show.

Johnson and his advisers, Humphrey included, kept their concerns secret at the time. But given that Nixon defeated Humphrey by just 500,000 votes out of 73 million cast and that Nixon's suspected perfidy involved the unpopular war in Vietnam, there is ample cause to wonder how history might have been changed had the concerns Johnson voiced 40 years ago been made public.

The LBJ Library made those conversations public Thursday with the release of 42 hours of recordings made from May 1968 until the Johnson family left the White House in January 1969. Johnson's daughters, Luci Baines Johnson and Lynda Johnson Robb , were on hand to listen to and comment on the tapes and their father.

Harry Middleton, the first director of the LBJ Library and the original overseer of the LBJ tape project, said Thursday that he was satisfied that the body of material complied with Johnson's wish that the American people be given the opportunity to see the 36th president of the United States "with the bark off."

Betty Sue Flowers, the current director, praised Middleton's decision 15 years ago to countermand the wishes of his old boss that the tapes be kept private for 50 years after his death. Johnson died in 1973.

"He had the foresight to say no to President Johnson," Flowers said at a news conference Thursday.

"It was easier to do when he was dead," Johnson Robb shot back from her seat in the small audience.

The final recordings take their place alongside more than 600 hours that have been released as they were processed and archived by the library over the past decade. The conversations span the breadth of Johnson's ascendancy after the assassination of President John Kennedy on Nov. 22, 1963 , until January 1969.

In these last months of 1968 alone, Johnson is heard offering to Sen. Edward Kennedy and his family condolences after the assassination of his brother, Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Robert Kennedy; discussing his reasoning for the continued bombing of North Vietnam; and reacting to the Soviet Union's invasion of Czechoslovakia.

With an election hanging in the balance, however, there is added drama in the flurry of calls in late October and early November concerning Johnson's attempt to bring the North and South Vietnamese governments together for the first time to discuss peace.

On March 31, under heavy pressure from the anti-war wing of his Democratic Party, Johnson shocked the American people by saying he would not run for re-election or accept his party's nomination. Instead, Johnson endorsed Humphrey, who inherited the warmonger label critics had hung on Johnson.

Luci Baines Johnson recalled the agony of her father, who she said sincerely wanted a just end to the war. She said she and her sister were stung by the protesters who picketed outside the White House.

"The last thing you would hear before you went to bed at night were protesters chanting, 'Hey, hey LBJ, how many boys did you kill today?' " Johnson said as her sister dabbed at tears.

To test the good faith of the North Vietnamese, Johnson ordered that all bombing in the north cease on Oct. 31 , six days before voters were to go the polls. The cease-fire gave the Humphrey campaign an immediate jolt — polls showed Nixon's 8-percentage-point lead had shrunk to 2 points.

The precise nature of any communication between Nixon's allies and the South Vietnamese government isn't revealed in the tapes — nor is the way Johnson and his advisers learned of them.

In the tapes, Johnson tells Secretary of State Dean Rusk: "It's pretty obvious to me it's had its effect."

In a segment aired at the news conference, Johnson tells Sen. Everett Dirksen , the Republican minority leader, that it will be Nixon's responsibility if the South Vietnamese don't participate in the peace talks.

"This is treason," LBJ says to Dirksen.

"I know," Dirksen replies, very softly.

Confronting Nixon by telephone on Nov. 3, Johnson outlines what had been alleged and how important it was to the conduct of the war for Nixon's people not to meddle.

"My God," Nixon says to Johnson, "I would never do anything to encourage the South Vietnamese not to come to that conference table." Instead, Nixon pledged to help in any way Johnson or Rusk suggested, "To hell with the political credit, believe me."

For Johnson and his top advisers, it wasn't a matter of whether Nixon was telling the truth but whether accusing Nixon of meddling would give the appearance that Johnson — rather than Nixon — was using the war to influence the election.

In the end, the South Vietnamese stayed away from the proposed peace talks. And Johnson listened to his advisers and suggested to Humphrey that he not use what he had learned.

"For God's sake, you want everybody to know you don't play politics with human lives, that we did what's right," Johnson tells Rusk on one of the recordings.

In several of the recordings, Johnson wonders what will become of a Democratic Party so riven by the war that it would not unite behind Humphrey.

"I'm sorry I let you down a little," Humphrey tells Johnson.

"No, you didn't; no you didn't," Johnson replies. "A lot of other folks (did), not you. You fought well and hard."

Let the Conservative Whining Begin

During eight years of Republican rule, conservative talkers had to work hard to find people to blame for the nation's troubles. That won't be a problem anymore.

Paul Waldman | November 25, 2008 |

Over the last eight years, many conservatives, particularly the radio and television hosts who enjoy such loud and lucrative megaphones, have been forced to navigate some difficult rhetorical waters. When your side controls the White House, the Congress (as it did until two years ago), the judiciary, and the business world, how do you argue that you're part of an oppressed group being held down by The Man? It isn't easy, but they did it nonetheless. The "elite" they bellowed at day after day is not those who actually hold power. It's obscure college professors, Hollywood actors, the city council of a town you don't live in, and nonprofit organizations who advocate for things like poor people or the environment or civil liberties. That's the source of your problems, they would say, and that's who you should be mad at.

So the coming transfer of power must make them feel light as air. Now when they begin their daily pity party, they'll actually be able to complain about the people in charge.

And complain they will -- oh, will they ever. There was a time when conservatives saw themselves as the masters of the universe, remaking the world as they would have it. But by now, claims of victimization have woven themselves so tightly into their identity that they barely know how to engage the political world without claiming to be oppressed.

Take this head-scratcher: In the last couple of weeks, conservatives have become positively obsessed with a supposed Democratic plot to reinstitute the Fairness Doctrine in order to silence right-wing talk radio (eliminated in 1987, the doctrine mandated ideological balance on radio and television).

The conservative magazine Human Events, for instance, sent out a solicitation last week from conservative radio talker Michael Reagan, with the following soft-sell message: "The radical liberals will do everything in their power to SHUT US DOWN, along with every other conservative voice in America. And they're already telling the world exactly how they're going to do it:THE "FAIRNESS DOCTRINE." We MUST take action to STOP them NOW, before they are able to mobilize support for this insidious attempt to SILENCE CONSERVATIVES!" Rest assured, the underlining, bolding, and all caps are in the original. The e-mail also featured a picture of Rush Limbaugh with a Soviet flag photoshopped over his mouth, with the caption, "Stalin Style Socialist Doctrine to Silence Rush Limbaugh and Conservatives."

So brave, this Limbaugh and his lieutenants. Warning of the impending crackdown from the brutal hand of the state makes you seem like a daring rebel, broadcasting your missives from an encampment deep in the forest while the terrified populace huddles around their forbidden radios to hear your message of truth. Si, Subcomandante Rush, don't give up your fight for freedom and justice! Across the land, lonely villagers sing folk songs of your courage!

The only problem is that the plot is completely imaginary -- Barack Obama has gone on record opposing a reinstatement of the doctrine, and the congressional leadership has zero interest in the idea. As Matthew Yglesias wrote last week, "Political movements mischaracterize the other side's general goals all the time. But I've never heard of anything like the current conservative mania for blocking a particular legislative provision that nobody is trying to enact."

Meanwhile, gun stores can't keep enough arms on the shelves, as desperate Second Amendment heroes build their stockpiles in anticipation of the disarming of America. They are egged on by the likes of G. Gordon Liddy, who despite being a convicted felon and unrepentant terrorist (among his unconsummated plots were the murder of columnist Jack Anderson and the firebombing of the Brookings Institution) is blessed with a nationally syndicated radio show. Liddy, who during the Clinton years told his listeners, "If the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco and Firearms comes to disarm you, and they are bearing arms, resist them with arms. Go for a head shot; they're going to be wearing bulletproof vests," Today, he advises his faithful flock to break whatever laws on gun registration that might apply to them. "The first thing you do is, no matter what law they pass, do not -- repeat, not -- ever register any of your firearms," Liddy recently said. "Because that's where they get the list of where to go first to confiscate. So, you don't ever register a firearm, anywhere." Be vigilant, bunker-dwellers, and make sure you have an ample supply of canned goods and ammunition.

It's no coincidence that the uptick in bitching and moaning comes as Republicans have become isolated ideologically, demographically, and geographically. The last factor -- that the GOP is now largely a Southern party -- gives the complaints endless fuel. As the center of gravity within the Republican Party has moved south, it has embraced that variant of Southern culture built on nurturing your sense of grievance and perseverating on your defeats. This is an old story -- even before the Civil War, Southerners couldn't talk enough about how those elitist Northerners were looking down their noses at the South. And is there a group of people anywhere in the world so obsessed with glorifying and celebrating a war they lost? A century and a half ago, my people were suffering through the Czar's pogroms, but I don't spend my weekends re-enacting them. Not that it's just conservative Southerners who have a hefty chip stapled to their shoulders. Grievance and complaint has become the lingua franca of the right all over the country. Politicians' desire to nurture these feelings gives us such spectacles as the one we saw on the penultimate night of the Republican convention, where the cross-dressing, opera-loving New Yorker Rudy Giuliani berated Barack Obama for being "cosmopolitan," while the multimillionaire, Harvard-trained industrial scion Mitt Romney bawled about the snootiness of the "Eastern elite." By the time Sarah Palin (now the de facto leader of the party's resentment wing) took the stage, the assembled crowd was mad as hell, and they weren't going to take it anymore.

This kabuki of complaint is built on a running series of imaginary slights. Democrats said that being the mayor of Wasilla, Alaska, isn't really an adequate preparation for the presidency? They're attacking small towns, and the people who live in them! Democrats want to get out of Iraq? They're attacking our troops! Democrats point out that the immortal Joe the Plumber would actually fare better under Barack Obama's tax plan than John McCain's? They're attacking guys with blue collars everywhere!

Not that progressives haven't spent the better part of the last eight years complaining. But most of those complaints have been about things the Bush administration actually did, not some imagined offense to progressives' honor. When the left has complained about what "they" are doing, the word has usually referred to the Bush administration. When the right uses it, it refers to a more amorphous group, defined not by their actions but by their attitude. It's the brie-eaters, the bureaucrats, the secularists, the immigrants, and pretty much anyone that you think might be looking down on you. Now the right will actually have a government to rail against, but I'm guessing the nefarious group keeping them down will remain pretty expansive.

And we haven't even started the annual braying about the "war on Christmas."

source The American Prospect

Oops is that Mic still on?

You would think a brilliant women like Peggy Noonan (Reagan's speech writer) would know how modern technology works. That just because you are off the air does not mean someone's mic is not still transmitting.

Yes She and Mike Murphy got caught providing a rarity in political spin, some true thoughts and opinions. Something you just NEVER NEVER Do!

Honesty in Politics gets you NO WHERE FAST!





Republican insiders caught by hot mic: Race is over
By Jimmy Orr | 09.03.08

Don’t expect Republican strategist Michael Murphy and Wall Street Journalist column Peggy Noonan to receive Christmas cards from the John McCain and Sarah Palin campaign this year.

On the most critical night of the year so far for the McCain-Palin ticket, the two Republican insiders were talking with MSNBC’s Chuck Todd about the Palin VP selection. The segment wraps up. End of story.

Not so fast.

The problem? They kept talking. The mics were still on, and they didn’t know it.

So what do they think when not spouting the made-for-TV talking points?

“It’s not going to work,” Murphy said.

Noonan said the race was over, and that Palin was not the most qualified woman for the job.

What would be most interesting is to hear what they said before they thought they were off the air.

Watch the video here.

Here’s the transcript of the exchange - thanks to Talking Points Memo

Chuck Todd: Mike Murphy, lots of free advice, we’ll see if Steve Schmidt and the boys were watching. We’ll find out on your blackberry. Tonight voters will get their chance to hear from Sarah Palin and she will get the chance to show voters she’s the right woman for the job Up next, one man who’s already convinced and he’ll us why Gov. Jon Huntsman.

(cut away)

Peggy Noonan: Yeah.

Mike Murphy: You know, because I come out of the blue swing state governor world: Engler, Whitman, Tommy Thompson, Mitt Romney, Jeb Bush. I mean, these guys — this is how you win a Texas race, just run it up. And it’s not gonna work. And –

PN: It’s over.

MM: Still McCain can give a version of the Lieberman speech to do himself some good.

CT: I also think the Palin pick is insulting to Kay Bailey Hutchinson, too.

PN: Saw Kay this morning.

CT: Yeah, she’s never looked comfortable about this –

MM: They’re all bummed out.

CT: Yeah, I mean is she really the most qualified woman they could have turned to?

PN: The most qualified? No! I think they went for this — excuse me– political bull**** about narratives –

CT: Yeah they went to a narrative.

MM: I totally agree.

PN: Every time the Republicans do that, because that’s not where they live and it’s not what they’re good at, they blow it.

MM: You know what’s really the worst thing about it? The greatness of McCain is no cynicism, and this is cynical.

CT: This is cynical, and as you called it, gimmicky.

MM: Yeah.

***Updated 8:43pm. Peggy Noonan has since provided an explanation for her statement “it’s over” on her column at the Wall Street Journal.

source The Christian Science Monitor

New FBI raid on Luzerne County Justice

The ever widening Federal investigation of corruption in the Luzerne County Justice System took a new turn with Fresh FBI raids and boxes of evidence seized form the Clerk of Courts and Court Treasurer. It is very apparent the focus of the Federal investigation has centered on two men Judge Michael T.Conahan and Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr.

Allegations of financial gain,perverted justice,association with common criminals for financial gain,steering public funds for private gain, the list is endless!

It is apparent the two judges should not be counting on retirement living in Florida, instead they will be spending their golden years at Club Fed!

Perverted Justice becomes Justice Served!


Luzerne County court probe widens


BY MICHAEL R. SISAK AND DAVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITERS
Published: Friday, August 22, 2008
Updated: Friday, August 22, 2008 4:30 AM EDT
WILKES-BARRE — Federal agents investigating the alleged theft of funds from the Luzerne County court administrator’s office served subpoenas this week on that office and two others within the county courthouse, Luzerne County District Attorney Jackie Musto Carroll said Thursday.

Agents from the FBI served the subpoenas Tuesday on the county treasurer’s office and the clerk of courts office, as well as the court administrator’s office, Ms. Musto Carroll said.

“My office and myself are working closely with the FBI,” Ms. Musto Carroll said. “They’ve been here and they’ll continue to be here.”

Deputy Treasurer Dominick DePolo, who on Wednesday confirmed agents were in his office looking for “court-related stuff,” said Thursday he was unaware other county offices were also being investigated.

The treasurer’s office collects, invests and disburses county funds and issues various permits and licenses, such as for hunting and fishing.

“I’m presuming they will be back,” Mr. DePolo said of the agents. “That was sort of indicated.”

Court Administrator William T. Sharkey, whose office performs the managerial functions of the county court system, including scheduling and budgeting, is on a monthlong leave of absence and could not be reached for comment.

Mr. Sharkey’s deputy, John P. Mulroy, and Peter J. Adonizio, a special court administrator, did not return a message left for comment. President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., who oversees the Office of Court of Administration, did not return a telephone message.

Paul McGarry, the director of court administrative services, said he was unaware of the investigation until he watched a report about it Thursday on a local television news broadcast.

Clerk of Courts Robert F. Reilly, whose office maintains the records of criminal cases prosecuted within the county, was said to be on vacation this week and could not be reached for comment.

FBI spokeswoman Jerri Williams said Wednesday she could not confirm or deny that subpoenas had been served.

The same investigators who served the subpoenas on the three county offices Tuesday searched the offices of the Luzerne County juvenile probation department in June, seizing records, contracts and other documents related to the detention and treatment of juvenile offenders since 2002.

FBI agents inspected documents involving the placement of juveniles at the Pennsylvania Child Care facility in Pittston Twp. and the Western Pennsylvania Child Care facility in Butler County.

The facilities were co-owned until June by Robert J. Powell, a prominent attorney with financial ties to Judge Ciavarella and Senior Judge Michael T. Conahan.

Contact the writers: msisak@citizensvoice.com, djanoski@citizensvoice.com

source Citizens Voice

Who Will Obama Choose?

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is my Psychic guess!

We will see in the next day or so and Barack Obama will have to choose by Saturday since a campaign event with his new Vice-presidential choice is planed at the Illinois State Capitol.

This is more a hunch than a guess and let me explain why.

Hilliary Clinton polled 21 million votes in the Democratic Primaries and you do not snub the millions who voted for a WOMAN with a safe dull white male.

Not when you profess to be the candidate of change!

Joe Biden is not change!

So what about Hillary? Not a chance Bill put the kibosh on that with public contempt for Obama and its rumored Obamas wife absolutely detests Hillary Rodham Clinton.

And who needs Hillary anyway, she is divisive and polarizing and comes with considerable baggage otherwise known as no. 42!

Kansas Gov. Kathleen Sebelius is popular in a GOP dominated Kansas and brings a Governors perspective and balance to the ticket.



A long shot in my opinion will be Virginia Gov. Tim Kaine.

One other prediction if Obama chooses Sebelius John McCain will be under considerable pressure to choose an "exciting" and "unconventional" vice-president.

After all If A Black man and White woman are running for President how will John McCain and Mitt Romney look to America?



Like last century's power couple!

If Obama goes with the SWG (Safe White Guy) he will squander his best chance for change and election.

McCain would then surely pick Mitt Romney for V.P, since Obama will have given him the political cover to play it safe. Sure a signifigant number of Christo-Fundys will refuse to vote for a Mormon but they wouldn't vote for a Goldwater-Non Social Con Maverick anyway!

Just my two cents!

Just call me Judge Dirty!

Officials: Conahan ordered deposits to his bank

Conahan

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BY DAVE JANOSKI
PROJECTS EDITOR

Published: Wednesday, July 23, 2008 11:03 AM EDT

Former Luzerne County President Judge Michael T. Conahan directed millions of government dollars to a bank of which he is a director by ordering the county’s magisterial district judges to deposit their fines there, county and state officials say.

First National Community Bank — where billionaire casino owner Louis A. DeNaples was chairman of the board until his recent indictment on perjury charges — handles about $7 million in deposits from those magisterial district courts each year, state and county audits show.

Conahan, whose financial holdings are a focus of an ongoing FBI investigation into the county courts, did not return phone messages seeking comment Tuesday.

Conahan’s decision to direct district court deposits to the bank came shortly before or after he was named to the bank board in 2003, county Court Administrator William Sharkey said Tuesday. Before that decision, the county’s 17 magisterial district judges, who handle traffic tickets, small civil cases and preliminary hearings in criminal cases, used banks of their own choosing.

Sharkey said the change was made because First National Community Bank, headquartered in Dunmore, offered a countywide courier service with daily pickup.

“Some of the magistrates had some concerns for security reasons. They weren’t too thrilled about taking deposits to the bank every day,” Sharkey said.

Sharkey said he didn’t know if the bank approached the county or if Conahan sought proposals from other banks.

“I’m not quite sure how that happened,” Sharkey said. “I’m not sure if they contacted the county and they offered the courier services or vice versa.”

James Koval, communications manager for the Administrative Office of Pennsylvania Courts, confirmed that First National Community Bank is the depository for all district courts in Luzerne County. He said decisions about where to deposit fines from district courts are left up to the president judge in each county. The fines are divided between the state and county, with more than two-thirds typically going to the state.

Koval said his office exercises no oversight over the selection of the banks and has no rules governing the selection.

“I’m not aware of any rule that addresses this head-on,” Koval said.

Joseph A. Massa Jr., chief counsel for the state Judicial Conduct Board, which enforces the state Code of Judicial Conduct, did not return phone messages Tuesday.

Conahan was paid $57,583 as a director at First National Community Bancorp Inc. in 2007, according to the bank’s U.S. Security and Exchange Commission filings. He owns 55,927 shares in the bank worth $755,014 at Tuesday’s closing price of $13.50 per share.

DeNaples, a Dunmore businessman with holdings in landfills, used auto parts and real estate, owns about 10 percent of the bank’s 15.8 million outstanding shares. His brother and son, who are also directors of the bank, own about 9 percent. The DeNaples’ shares are worth $40 million.

The bank reported having $945 million in deposits in 2007.

DeNaples took a leave of absence from the bank board on Feb. 6 after he was charged with lying to state gaming regulators about ties to organized crime figures when seeking a license for his Mount Airy Casino Resort in Monroe County, which opened last year.

Federal banking regulators subsequently suspended him from the board and prohibited him from participating in the affairs of the bank while the charges are pending. The Pennsylvania Gaming Control Board barred DeNaples from Mount Airy and appointed a trustee to oversee the casino until the criminal case is concluded.

DeNaples, 67, and bank President and CEO J. David Lombardi, who is acting chairman of the board, did not return phone messages Tuesday.

Conahan, who retired last year at age 56 and is now a senior judge presiding over the county’s Drug Treatment Court, has declined comment on the ongoing federal probe.

Courthouse sources speaking on condition of anonymity say the FBI and IRS have questioned them about Conahan’s links to the former owner of a juvenile detention center. The center made millions from county contracts after Conahan decided to stop sending juveniles to an aging county-owned facility in 2003.

Conahan has described the former co-owner of the facility, Butler Township attorney Robert J. Powell, as a personal friend. The FBI seized county records detailing the county’s dealings with Powell’s center last month.

The Standard-Speaker first reported in May that Conahan and current President Judge Mark A. Ciavarella Jr., who presided over juvenile court for a dozen years, have a financial interest in a townhouse development firm headed by Powell’s law partner, county Prothonotary Jill A. Moran. Powell owned half of the townhouse firm until the second half of 2004.

The townhouse firm, W-Cat Inc., is building an 86-unit development in Wright Township called The Sanctuary with $4.5 million in funding through First National Community Bank. Another director of the bank, Michael G. Cestone, is president of the construction company building the townhouses, S.G. Mastriani Co. Inc.

Cestone did not return a phone message Tuesday.

djanoski@citizensvoice.com

source Standard Speaker

The Judge and the Drug Dealer

My longstanding antipathy to Judge Michael Conahan is well known, from insinuations of illegal and unethical behavior to a cavalier disregard for the law and concept of Justice. I also have an issue with the tidy little deal he gave Cobra Video's owner and gay Pornographer Bryan Kocis in 2002.

After Kocis was charged with rape,molestation of a 15 yo and filming of gay child pornography Conahan "reviewed" hundreds of hours of footage and declared all the boys in the video were of age. He refused to allow outside review of the video by Federal experts.
He allowed Kocis to accept a deal of one year probation, with no jail time and a refusal to require that Kocis register as a sex offender.

Perverted Justice if you ask me!

Luzerne County Judge in business with ex-con?

By
BY DAVE JANOSKI
STAFF WRITER

Published: Wednesday, July 16, 2008
Updated: Wednesday, July 16, 2008 1:00 AM EDT

WILKES-BARRE — Fourteen years ago, Luzerne County Judge Michael T. Conahan said allegations that he helped connect a Florida cocaine dealer with a Hazleton buyer were “bogus” stories told by “common criminals” hoping to curry favor with federal prosecutors.

Four years ago, the convicted cocaine dealer and Judge Conahan’s wife, Barbara, formed a Pompano Beach used-car business, according to an official with the company who said Monday that he met with Judge Conahan, the judge’s wife and the former dealer in Florida to discuss setting up the business in 2004.

Barbara Conahan was president of the used-car business, RAB Auto Sales Inc., according to Florida corporate documents. The former drug dealer, Ronald Belletiere, operated RAB, according to the company’s former secretary/treasurer. Florida documents indicate the company has been inactive since September 2007.

Former RAB secretary/treasurer Charles Rebhan said in a phone interview Monday that Mr. Belletiere approached him in 2004 to help set up a business that would buy used cars at auctions for resale.

Mr. Rebhan, who spent more than four decades in car sales, had previously worked with Mr. Belletiere at a Florida dealership. In spring or summer 2004, Mr. Belletiere set up a lunch meeting with Judge Conahan, his wife and Mr. Rebhan in Florida, where they discussed how the business would be set up and operated, Mr. Rebhan said.

Judge Conahan, whose financial dealings are being examined by federal agents conducting a probe of the county court, and his wife did not return phone messages seeking comment Tuesday.

Judge Conahan’s name surfaced during Mr. Belletiere’s 1991 federal trial in the “Empire” drug case involving cocaine trafficking in Hazleton in the 1980s, when Judge Conahan was a magisterial district judge in the city.

Government witness Neal DeAngelo testified Judge Conahan called him in 1986 and said he had heard Mr. DeAngelo’s brother, Paul, had been buying cocaine from a dealer who was under investigation. Judge Conahan offered to put the DeAngelos in contact with a Florida dealer, Mr. DeAngelo testified.

Mr. Belletiere, who is a former Hazleton resident, subsequently called Mr. DeAngelo at Judge Conahan’s request, according to testimony, and the DeAngelo brothers and another man traveled to Miami to buy $26,500 worth of cocaine from Mr. Belletiere.

Judge Conahan was on the prosecution’s list of witnesses for the Belletiere trial but was not called to testify. The federal prosecutor in the case, during a “sidebar” conversation with the judge out of the jury’s earshot, called Judge Conahan an “unindicted co-conspirator” in the case, according to a transcript.

In August 1994, Judge Conahan held a press conference to deny he had referred Mr. Belletiere to the DeAngelos, but he acknowledged knowing all three men, having represented their families in legal matters.

In a 2003 interview, Judge Conahan said he was exonerated by the Judicial Conduct Board, which has never commented publicly on the case. The board’s chief counsel, Joseph Massa Jr., said the board does not comment on investigations that do not lead to public charges.

Paul DeAngelo and Mr. Belletiere received reduced prison sentences in the “Empire” case upon the recommendation of federal prosecutors. Both were released in 1995. Neal DeAngelo was never charged.

The DeAngelo brothers, who operate DBi Services, which provides commercial services, including vegetation and road management, to government and business clients nationwide from its headquarters in Hazleton, did not respond to an interview request Tuesday.

Mr. Belletiere, 53, who lives in south Florida, did not respond to an interview request made through his daughter, Briana. She acknowledged her father had operated RAB Auto Sales Inc., but believed the company is no longer active.

Judge Conahan listed RAB Auto Sales on his annual financial disclosure forms filed with the state Supreme Court for 2004, 2005, 2006 and 2007.

Judge Conahan, who was president judge from 2002 through 2006, announced his retirement last year at age 56 although he had six years left on his second 10-year term. He is now a senior judge primarily overseeing the county’s Drug Treatment Court.

source The Scranton Times Tribune