Bill White was persuaded to write a pitch for a Pawlowski pardon (commute of sentence) by a mutual friend of theirs. White pleads that Pawlowski didn't take money for himself, but only for his campaign for Congress, (where he could really enrich himself.) What Bill omits is that every city contract rewarded was based on those contributions to his campaigns, not on value to the city. White omits that in essence Pawlowski stole repeatedly from the city and taxpayers.
White complains that the judge threw the book at Pawlowski with a sentence near the top of the guidelines. At this point Pawlowski has served a little less than half the sentence, so a pardon now would be at the bottom of the guidelines.
The worse part of White's whitewash is his claim of what a wonderful mayor Pawlowski was. Prior to the indictment and trial there certainly was no criticism of Pawlowski from either White or the Morning Call. While the government proved Pawlowski's guilt on almost fifty counts, perhaps Bill should wonder why he still thinks that Pawlowski was a good mayor?
Mayor Pawlowski did some nice things for my late mother and aunt. They had difficulty getting around in their last years, and he authorized some disabled parking spaces in front of their homes so they would not have to park some distances from their front doors. Later, on a visit to Allentown, I arranged to meet him at city hall and thanked him for that, it was very kind of him to do that.
ReplyDeleteNow, given that other than superficially knowing him and meeting him, I did not really know him other than being the mayor of my hometown. And since I don't live in Allentown, all of his goings-on were unknown to me.
However, the fact remains that he was charged in United States District Court with 54 criminal felony charges, including conspiracy to commit mail fraud, bribery and soliciting, extortion under color of official right, mail fraud, wire fraud and honest services mail fraud. He was the first mayor of Allentown to be indicted with criminal charges. And stood trial and was convicted of 47 of the 54 felonies, well, you know, that's pretty bad.
Where the money went, well, I believe the applicable phrase in Pennsylvania Dutch is "Machs nix". It doesn't matter; it isn't important in English.
I read he's doing good things in prison. That's nice and once he does his time for his crimes (all 47 of them), hopefully he'll continue to be a good citizen, wherever he chooses to live.
Brent, glad for your mother's parking spaces, but he also used city hall as a weapon against this critics, especially code. He used appointments to commissions for political purpose, as opposed to the intended purpose. As for being an model prisoner, in minimum security prisons they're all model prisoners. He was very popular, and might still be able to be elected again. But, that is not a compliment about Allentown.
DeleteI would hope that the forfeiture clause of the city charter would exclude Pawlowski running for office again.
DeleteThat said, I worry about him getting a cushy city job from one of his many former cronies that reside in City Hall and once again fleecing city taxpayers.
Maybe that’s the real reason why so many democrat politicians in Allentown wanted the criminal conviction questions removed from city job applications.
How many good people were attacked by Pawlowski’s goons just for disagreeing with his policies?
ReplyDeleteHow many elected officials were smeared because people assumed that “they all do that”?
How much were Allentown taxpayers overtaxed (with tax hikes and new taxes) so that Pawloswki could overpay city contracts to get his political kickbacks?
How many city employees that wouldn’t go along with Pawlowski’s corruption lost their careers or were forced into retirement so that he could install his flunkies?
To that point, how many years of institutional knowledge were lost in City Departments and how much were city policies and standards degraded by the inexperienced lackeys Pawlowski put in place? Allentown still feels the effects of Pawlowski’s employee purge.
I could go on, but you get the point.
Pawlowski deserves more than he got. His corruption started early with smaller misdeeds (remember things like his misuse of city vehicles for personal use; the man cave in his home built shortly after he took office without city permits; the favoritism to certain city contractors in exchange for personal work and favors; or Pawlowski’s continuous shakedowns of city restaurants for free meals) and culminated in the even more egregious offenses he was charged with.
Perhaps if Bill White and the Morning had been doing their jobs instead of cheerleading for Pawlowski (or for a new municipal parking deck conveniently located next to the Morning Call offices; or lobbying for the lines of the NIZ to be redrawn to boost the value of the MC building), Bill White could have done his job and reported on such things.
The facts remain that the FBI probe did not even attempt to investigate or charge ALL of Pawlowski’s offenses during his terms in office, and he fought the charges he did face all the way through the trial further costing federal taxpayers. And Pawlowski wasn’t convicted on one or two small infractions. He was found GUILTY on all (or almost all) 47 counts he faced!
Pawlowski never has offered a real admission of his guilt or apology to the taxpayers of Allentown to this day. For him to be pardoned or have his sentence commuted would be a further miscarriage of justice.
May Pawlowski rot in jail for his full sentence.
Pawlowski deserved more, and Bill White needs to go back to writing stale articles about Christmas lights and festival food.
anon @ 5:29: By coincidence I will be mentioning some White articles this week, but not with any malice. On the note of my budding softness, I even gave White some heads up about this post. He believes that this is the last chance for a Pawlowski pardon before serving his full term. Trump actually issued many pardons and commutations before leaving office in 2020.
Delete“Bill White was persuaded to write a pitch for a Pawlowski pardon (commute of sentence) by a mutual friend of theirs.”
ReplyDeleteI suspect that the “mutual friend” is the mentally-challenged former head of a local non profit.
If correct, Pawlowski kept that local non profit (and the mutual friend’s personal salary) afloat with city-directed tax dollars, while that non profit provided cushy jobs to Pawlowski supporters.
Mind you, Pawlowski never required any report cards on the success of that non profit, and the problems the group was supposedly addressing got nothing but worse in the city by all objective standards.
Maybe Bill White should write an article analyzing his choices of friends.
anon@6:11: I also think that Alan Jennings is probably the mutual friend. Jennings began campaigning for an early Pawlowski release immediately after the sentence began. I outlined to Jennings and a few other Pawlowski die-hearts how to abused his critics...they could care less.
DeleteWhatever the 'for' or 'against' arguments may be, had he pled guilty and expressed sincere remorse he'd probably be out by now. It's never a wise idea to go up against prosecutors when they have such a strong case against a defendant. I may not be a lawyer but I watch a lot of TV :-)
ReplyDelete