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Ex-beauty queen in Bonusgate scandal is still on state payroll

HARRISBURG - The former local beauty queen at the center of a Capitol job-for-sex scandal continues to work for the state.

HARRISBURG - The former local beauty queen at the center of a Capitol job-for-sex scandal continues to work for the state.

Angela Bertugli is being paid $45,344 a year as a legislative researcher, despite telling prosecutors that she believes she got her state job in the first place because she was having a fling with the top aide to House Democratic Leader Bill DeWeese.

DeWeese (D., Greene) has defended keeping Bertugli on the House payroll because she did the right thing in cooperating with authorities in the corruption probe known as Bonusgate.

"It would be wrong to take retribution against those who told the truth," Tom Andrews, DeWeese's press secretary, said yesterday.

Attorney General Tom Corbett last week announced criminal charges against a former top House Democrat, 10 aides, and a sitting lawmaker, alleging they carried out a conspiracy to use public resources and staff for political campaign purposes.

Among those charged was Michael Manzo, DeWeese's former chief of staff. Once DeWeese's most trusted aide, Manzo is charged with, among other things, creating a no-work job for Bertugli, with whom he was involved.

Bertugli has not been charged. Attempts to reach her have been unsuccessful.

Manzo, a grand jury found, met Bertugli at a bar in 2004 when she was 21 and he was 35. They had a few drinks before having a tryst in a car.

A year later, Manzo reportedly placed Bertugli in a job created just for her, according to the indictments. She was assigned to work out of a purported field office in Pittsburgh that actually was a dingy space above a cigar shop on that city's South Side.

Bertugli told authorities that for 70 percent of the time, she had nothing to do, so she studied. When she did work, it often was on campaign tasks, not government duties, the grand jury alleged.

In 2006, Bertugli received $7,000 in government bonuses. Such bonuses, handed out to hundreds of legislative employees, prompted Corbett's investigation 17 months ago.

In July of last year, after being accepted into law school at Widener University, she was transferred to a job in the Capitol. She works as an analyst in the Legislative Research Office - a group of aides assigned to nearly 65 Democratic House members who do not have separate research staff of their own.

The fact that she was still on the House payroll despite acknowledging she had held a no-work job was first reported by WHTM-27, Harrisburg's ABC affiliate. Bertugli told authorities that her sexual relationship with Manzo continued until November, when DeWeese fired him.

Through his attorney, Manzo last week denied that Bertugli's position was a "ghost job" and said it did involve legitimate state work.

Bertugli was named Miss Rain Day in 2001 in an annual beauty pageant in Greene County, the heart of DeWeese's legislative district.