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Another ally of Rep. Bill Keller is indicted

IT HAS BEEN nearly 2 1/2 years since teams of FBI and IRS agents raided homes and offices in Pennsport connected with state Rep. Bill Keller. So far, three of the 11-term state legislator's close allies have been indicted.

IT HAS BEEN nearly 2 1/2 years since teams of FBI and IRS agents raided homes and offices in Pennsport connected with state Rep. Bill Keller. So far, three of the 11-term state legislator's close allies have been indicted.

Mark Olkowski, Keller's longtime business partner, is the latest to fall. Olkowski was indicted Tuesday by a federal grand jury on charges of filing false personal and business tax returns, as well as wire fraud for improperly collecting unemployment.

Keller's chief of staff, Lorraine DiSpaldo, and a former staffer, Robert Mulgrew, were indicted in September on charges of misusing hundreds of thousands of dollars in state grant money meant for two nonprofits. The grant applications were prepared in Keller's office.

Mulgrew, by the time he was indicted, was a Philadelphia Traffic Court judge. The state Supreme Court suspended him. His wife also was indicted in that case.

It is unclear if the 2010 raids and the resulting indictments are connected to a continuing federal probe of Traffic Court.

Keller and Olkowski run K&O Sports, which prints T-shirts and other items for local labor unions, political campaigns and taverns.

Olkowski is accused of underreporting his personal income by $237,097 from 2006 to 2009, and the business income by $251,272 during the same period. He also was charged with collecting $25,484 in unemployment while self-employed at the business.

The indictment also said that Olkowski did not report as income personal expenses that he paid with company money or "significant sums of cash" that were received by the company but not deposited in company bank accounts.

Olkowski, his attorney and Keller did not respond to requests for comment Tuesday.

Keller is mentioned once in Olkowski's indictment, listed as his business partner, "W.K."

Keller was listed as "W.K." 16 times in the September indictment of DiSpaldo, Mulgrew and Mulgrew's wife, Elizabeth.

Mulgrew worked for Local 98 of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers after leaving Keller's office. The union helped him win a seat on Traffic Court.

Local 98 also has close ties to Keller. The union, in a federal report last year on 2011 expenses, said that it spent $15,053 on business-development items and $143,729 for "get out the vote" promotional items at K & O Sports in 2011.

Local 98 reported spending $96,499 at K & O Sports in 2012 on election materials, according to campaign finance reports.