House speaker takes stand at corruption trial

HARRISBURG - If there was any doubt that the specter of a four-year political corruption probe still hangs heavy over the General Assembly, it was quashed Wednesday when the reigning House speaker spent the first part of his busy day on the witness stand.

Just an hour after Sam Smith (R., Jefferson) left the Dauphin County courtroom where jurors are hearing testimony in the so-called Computergate trial, he was back at the Capitol, presiding over legislative action.

On the stand for about an hour, Smith said he was unaware that taxpayer money had been used illegally by the House GOP caucus - to finance a campaign database - until after then-Attorney General Tom Corbett launched his probe into legislative misappropriation of funds.

Smith has not been charged and was testifying as a defense witness. He said repeatedly that he relied on the House GOP legal team to screen all contracts before he signed them.

"The legal department reviewed all contracts," said Smith, who is not a lawyer. "All of this was reviewed by lawyers, it's legal, it's been checked out."

After he testified, reporters asked Smith whether, as House majority leader at the time, he should have known what was going on. He replied, "I do not feel I was negligent, and I certainly don't believe I was complicit."

Ten former Republican staffers and legislators, among them onetime House Speaker John Perzel of Philadelphia, were charged with using more than $10 million in public money to create a sophisticated computer database that was then used to help GOP candidates win elections.

Perzel and six others have pleaded guilty to various charges, and one defendant, former Perzel aide John Zimmerman, is to be tried separately later in the year. Jurors have been hearing testimony for five weeks in the trial of former House Appropriations Committee chairman Brett Feese of Lycoming County and his onetime aide, Jill Seaman.

Prosecutors have given little indication of whether Smith was ever a subject of their scrutiny. To reporters' questions about that, the Attorney General's Office has said only that it charged people against whom it has sufficient evidence and that its investigation continues.

Smith, who appeared confident and composed on the witness stand, said that as House majority leader in 2004 and 2005, he signed off on contracts with a New Orleans software company, GCR & Associates.

During the time the House GOP caucus used GCR's services, he said, he was led to believe the data would be used to improve interaction between lawmakers and their constituents.

"It was strictly legislative," Smith testified.

Under questioning by Seaman's defense attorney, Bill Fetteroff, Smith said that in 2004 he had expressed concern about the nature of the GCR contract and had asked Perzel's then-chief-of-staff, Brian Preski - who also was charged but who has made a plea deal - what the contract's purpose was.

Smith said he did not learn the data had been used for campaigning until after the corruption probe was under way.

His testimony appeared to be at odds with that of Perzel - who, on the stand last week as a prosecution witness, said "everyone knew" that the computer data from GCR were being used for campaign purposes.

Records show GCR was paid $9 million in state funds by the House Republican caucus between 2003 and 2008.

On Wednesday, when chief prosecutor Frank Fina asked Smith whether Feese had ever told him who was paying for the contracts, Smith said he did not until "sometime post-investigation."

It was only as the state investigation was unfolding, Smith said, that "he told me [the House Republican Campaign Committee] was not paying."