Michael Manzo

Michael L. "Mike" Manzo is a former chief of staff for Pennsylvania House of Representatives Majority Leader H. William DeWeese. He served as a staffer for the Democratic Caucus in the Pennsylvania House of Representatives for over 10 years, rising to become one of the most powerful staffers in the state capitol. Manzo controlled the policy and communications efforts for the House Democratic Caucus and helped engineer the passage of a wide range of bills.

In 2007, he was fired by DeWeese and subsequently charged for allegedly using taxpayer money for illegal campaign purposes and creating a no-work job for his mistress. In his testimony for the prosecution at a preliminary hearing, he implicated his former boss, DeWeese, in the alleged scheme.

Personal life Manzo was born in Monaca, Beaver County, Pennsylvania. His father was a steelworker and his mother worked at a local jewelry store. He played drums and baseball at Monaca School District, where he graduated fourth in his class. Pundits commented that his job description included providing frequent "DeWeese-to-English translations" for his boss' famously verbose speaking style. In 2002, he was named to the PoliticsPA list of "Rising Stars" in Pennsylvania politics.

Firing Manzo and six other Democratic staffers were fired on November 13, 2007, after the release of emails pertaining to the Pennsylvania Attorney General's investigation into illegal legislative bonuses paid for campaign work. Manzo denied any wrongdoing and said that he resigned to avoid becoming a distraction for the Democratic caucus.

Triad Strategies By the end of November 2007, Manzo was hired as a senior relations consultant for Triad Strategies, a Harrisburg, Pennsylvania-based lobbying and public relations firm. Anthony May, a senior vice president at Triad, expressed no concern about hiring Manzo in the midst of the legislative bonus controversy, saying, "We always had hoped Mike would come to work for us."

Legal issues

Grand jury investigation On July 10, 2008, Pennsylvania Attorney General Tom Corbett announced that his office was filing charges against Manzo and 11 other current and former Democratic staff members relating to the legislative bonus controversy. Manzo faces nine counts each of conflict of interest, theft by unlawful taking or disposition, theft by deception, theft of services, theft by failure to make required disposition of funds, and two counts of criminal conspiracy. Specifically, the grand jury found that in 2004, Manzo and Mike Veon began tracking all House Democratic Caucus employees who volunteered for off-duty political campaign work. This list recorded the various efforts and campaign activities of the "volunteers" and was eventually refined to identify those public employees who excelled at these campaign efforts, denoting them as "superstars," "Rock Stars," "Good," and "OK." In a surprise turn, he took the stand as a witness for the prosecution during preliminary hearings for two of his co-defendants, State Representative Sean Ramaley and Anna Marie Perretta-Rosepink, and implicated DeWeese in the bonus scheme. According to his testimony under cross-examination, Manzo believed that DeWeese was aware that the secret bonuses were compensation for illegal campaign work. Manzo's attorney, Jim Eisenhower, who ran for Pennsylvania Attorney General in 2000 and was the Democratic nominee for Attorney General in 2004, said that Manzo will plead guilty to the "most serious charges against him" and will make his cooperation known to the sentencing judge. The trial of the 12 defendants is expected to begin in January 2009.