Lentz seeks federal probe of Meehan's ballot petitions

Democratic congressional candidate Bryan Lentz called on federal authorities Thursday to investigate irregularities in his opponent's nominating petitions, which he said were loaded with forgeries and tainted by patterns of fraud.

In his most detailed attack, Lentz said that Republican Patrick Meehan should be held responsible for the petitions circulated by party volunteers who gathered 3,623 signatures to get Meehan's name on the Republican ballot for the May 18 primary in the Seventh District.

"What I've shown you is just the tip of what is a very expansive case of not just forgery, but false swearing, deception, and other acts of fraud which permeate the petition process," Lentz said at a news conference outside the federal courthouse in Philadelphia. "It's his campaign, and the buck has to stop somewhere."

The state attorney general is investigating problems with some of Meehan's nominating petitions, which Meehan himself turned over to law enforcement last month. Meehan, a former U.S. attorney, flagged at least four possibly fraudulent signatures among 20 pages of petitions circulated by Paul Summers, a Republican operative from Upper Darby.

Lentz said the problem goes beyond Summers' petitions and affects enough signatures that Meehan would not have the 1,000 needed to put his name on the ballot. Lentz argued Thursday that federal authorities would give a more impartial investigation than the office of Attorney General Tom Corbett, a Republican candidate for governor.

Meehan's lawyer, James Gardner Colins, who is representing him in a civil challenge to his nominating petitions, said that while there may be problems with some of the petitions, that does not mean Meehan "was part of any scheme or design" to submit fraudulent signatures.

"I think this is character assassination of the cheapest political form," Colins said.

Meehan's campaign did not respond to a call for comments to some of Lentz's allegations, but spokesman Pete Peterson issued a statement saying Lentz was engaging in political grandstanding.

"As a former prosecutor, when Pat Meehan learned of potential fraudulent signatures on a circulator's petition, he immediately referred the matter to law enforcement to investigate," Peterson said. "It is disappointing that Bryan Lentz continues to engage in a campaign of innuendo and character assassination when Pat Meehan has demonstrated his own integrity and unyielding commitment to principle by personally calling this issue to the attention of investigators."

Kevin Harley, a spokesman for Corbett's office, said a probe into nominating petition forgeries is a state case.

"We have jurisdiction, it's election code," he said. "We will conduct a criminal investigation and follow it wherever the evidence leads."

Lentz said Thursday that his campaign had interviewed dozens of people whose names were forged, some multiple times on a single petition. Lentz was alerted to potential problems by Ed Bradley, an Upper Darby Democrat who headed Lentz's two state House campaigns. Bradley's wife, Terry, was listed on Meehan's petition, but she never signed. A visit with several of Bradley's neighbors found their signatures had also been forged, Ed Bradley said Thursday.

The Lentz campaign says it has found all but 609 of Meehan's signatures to be problematic.

At the news conference Thursday, Jeffrey Rudolph, a Springfield Republican named in a civil challenge to Meehan's petition, asked Lentz for an apology. Rudolph, who spent a weekend collecting a page and a half of signatures for Meehan, said he never forged any signatures and witnessed every one.

"I don't apologize to anyone whose signature and work was part of the stack of Meehan petitions that included dozens and dozens of forgeries and dozens of instances of false swearing," Lentz said.

The civil challenge to Meehan's petitions is pending in Commonwealth Court, with a conference scheduled for Monday and a trial date of April 14. Colins, the former president judge of Commonwealth Court, has asked that the complaint be dismissed, saying there are not enough invalid signature on the petitions to drop Meehan below the required 1,000.

The lawyer for the challengers, Clifford Levine of Pittsburgh, filed a motion last week saying entire pages of signatures can be struck if a circulator did not personally witness each signature.

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