Pat Meehan: Political career grew from work as a prosecutor

Patrick Meehan had been Delaware County district attorney less than a month when a multimillionaire sports patron shot and killed an Olympic wrestler in Newtown Square. A few months later, a college student was abducted along the Blue Route, then killed and dumped in a lot in North Philadelphia.

The high-profile cases in 1996 drew national media attention to Meehan, a former hockey referee and civil litigator who had no previous criminal-law experience.

Winning convictions in those two cases bolstered Meehan's reputation as a law-and-order Republican, and led to his appointment as U.S. attorney for the eastern district of Pennsylvania in 2001.

Now Meehan, 55, of Drexel Hill, is running for an open seat in the Seventh Congressional District, one of the most closely watched races of the year. He faces Democratic State Rep. Bryan Lentz, an Iraq war veteran and two-term state representative.

The Seventh District is centered in Delaware County, where Meehan has lived for decades and where many already know him.

And Meehan has a few other advantages.

He's a Republican in a year when his party hopes to capitalize on voter discontent with Democrats.

And Meehan has $1.5 million cash on hand, more than twice what Lentz reported in the latest filings.

Meehan's professional life began in an unlikely spot: the farm-team divisions of the National Hockey League.

He began officiating professionally in 1979, and it was during those three years on the ice that Meehan first tussled with his ambitious nature.

Meehan's first assignment was at "the rookie division," and he complained to his supervisors about it. It didn't go over well.

"It took me quite some time to dig out of that doghouse," Meehan said. "I ultimately did . . . but I learned a great deal about the value of discretion when dealing with superiors."

The misstep might have cost him a chance to be at the Winter Olympics in Lake Placid, N.Y., in 1980.

"I had already officiated that summer at the Olympic trials, and this incident probably cost me the opportunity to officiate the Olympics where the USA hockey team won gold," he said.

Meehan left hockey for law school, and later joined Dilworth Paxon's corporate department in Philadelphia. His political career started in earnest in 1990 as an aide to U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter.

During his terms as Delaware County district attorney, Meehan encountered cases that still haunt him. Multimillionaire John E. du Pont gunned down Olympic wrestler David Schultz.

Meehan considers the conviction of Arthur Bomar for the murder of Amy Willard his proudest achievement.

Bomar bumped Willard's car on the Blue Route, forcing her to pull over. He abducted the 22-year-old and killed her. Bomar was sentenced to death and remains in prison.

"It was a very complex investigation and a lot of false leads," Meehan said during a recent interview at the Llanerch Diner. ". . . Getting to the point of conviction through a lot of the road blocks gave me a great sense of satisfaction."

Six days after Sept. 11, 2001, Meehan started as U.S. attorney.

His tenure at the office was marked by high-profile public corruption cases. He was at the helm when federal investigators bugged Mayor John F. Street's office. Street was never charged, but other city employees were convicted in the probe. Meehan was also in office during the investigation of former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, but left his post before charges were filed.

Meehan also helped secure a $2.5 million federal grant to thwart gang activity along U.S. Route 222 between Allentown and Reading. His efforts to raise the profile of the office meant he held many news conferences, which led some federal employees to call him a "media hound."

The publicity served its purposes, Meehan said: a morale boost for the office and a deterrent to criminals.

"Almost every case, it would showcase the work of agents and the prosecuting attorneys, who always shared in the limelight," he said. "My job is to promote that office and my job is to tell the taxpayers what we are doing."

Throughout his career as a prosecutor, Meehan never took a case to court himself, a choice that has brought criticism from Lentz, a former Philadelphia assistant district attorney. Meehan said he preferred to manage full time and help create new programs that would change how the offices worked.

Meehan has been praised for working with Republicans and Democrats alike, both in the office and out in the region. But some current and former federal prosecutors say he politicized the office, rewarding personal loyalty over merit.

Meehan denies that he played favorites, and said virtually every personnel choice he made was done in consult with other managers.

"Whenever you manage more than 100 attorneys, there's always going to be attorneys who believe that someone isn't as good as they are," Meehan said. "The performance of the office speaks for itself."

On the campaign trail, Meehan seems to prefer one-on-one voter interactions rather than tangling with Lentz. Still, the two have debated four times and will meet again Monday at Neumann University.

During one recent campaign stop, Meehan spent more than an hour visiting Pfaff Brothers Construction Inc., a family-owned contracting business in Glenolden. Ken Pfaff told him how the poor economy led him to lay off one of his eight employees this year, his first layoff since he opened in 1983.

If elected to Congress, Meehan says he wants to be someone who listens to all sides of an argument and helps negotiate the best solution.

He says the district could use a Republican voice in Congress from someone who hails from a more urban area.

"The world doesn't all look like Utah and South Carolina," he said. "Congress is becoming more balkanized. . . . I think that is leading to some of the gridlock."

Age: 55. Born Oct. 20, 1955, in Cheltenham, Montgomery County.

Residence: Drexel Hill, Delaware County.

Education: Chestnut Hill Academy, 1974; B.A. in government and legal studies and in classics, Bowdoin College, 1978; J.D., Temple Law School, 1986.

Professional experience: Ice hockey referee, 1979 to 1982; associate at Dilworth, Paxson, Kalish & Kauffman, 1986 to 1991, 1994 to 1996; partner at Conrad O'Brien, 2008 to present.

Political experience: Special counsel and executive director for U.S. Sen. Arlen Specter, 1991 to 1994; campaign manager for Rick Santorum for U.S. Senate, 1994; Delaware County district attorney, 1996 to 2001; U.S. attorney, 2001 to 2008.

Party: Republican

Family: Wife, Carolyn, three children.

EndText