Cavanagh denies ethics accusations
Pegging the move as a “continuation of dirty tactics” used against him in the political arena, Fayette County Commissioner Sean M. Cavanagh said Wednesday that the State Ethics Commission is looking into an allegation that he shook down county employees for campaign contributions. “Something’s going on,” said Cavanagh. “They said I was soliciting campaign contributions from county employees. I’m going to nip it in the butt … The last campaign (in 1999), I was knocked off the ballot. That didn’t work (so now they’re trying something else).”
Cavanagh said while there is no merit to the charge, he has no way of knowing who lodged the complaint, as the ethics commission legally operates under a veil of secrecy. However, Cavanagh said he found it interesting that the Tribune-Review newspaper apparently had knowledge of the supposedly secret preliminary investigation.
Cavanagh said that he confirmed the status of the investigation in a telephone conversation with Robert P. Caruso, the ethics commission’s deputy executive director as well as its director of investigations.
“What I told him that I’m really angry about is that the Tribune-Review knows more about what’s going on with this than I do,” said Cavanagh. “I (also) told the guy (Caruso) that this is frivolous.”
Caruso, added Cavanagh, is a one-time colleague of Commission Chairman Vincent A. Vicites. “You guys used to work together (in Harrisburg),” said Cavanagh at Wednesday’s commission meeting.
Vicites said that while he knows Caruso and they once played on the same softball team in the state capital, he hasn’t had any recent contact with him.
“I have not talked to Rob Caruso for years,” said Vicites. “I have not seen or talked to Rob Caruso since 1989.”
However, Vicites said that Caruso is now “number two in command” at the State Ethics Commission. Caruso did not return a call seeking comment on Cavanagh’s status and his dealings with Vicites.
Cavanagh said that when he talked with Caruso after Wednesday’s meeting, Caruso told him that the complaint was filed Sept. 15 and that once the preliminary investigation concludes, the matter goes before a seven-person panel scheduled to render a decision on Dec. 4.
“They decide to either pursue it, or it dies right there,” said Cavanagh, who added that while he faxed Caruso his 2001 campaign expense report and pledged his full cooperation, he thinks the way the situation is handled is “almost un-American” because he can’t face his accuser.
Cavanagh added that two official-looking men recently visited a residential property he owns on College Avenue in South Union Township. Cavanagh said that property – rented partly to his grandmother and partly to a trucker – is the one that in a separate dirty trick was alleged to have been rented to Fayette Resources Inc., a service provider for the county’s Mental Health/Mental Retardation Program.
Cavanagh said that while Caruso told him that the two men were not members of the ethics commission staff, the visit stokes his political suspicions. He said his trucker tenant demanded to see identification from the men, then threatened to call 9-1-1 if they didn’t get off the property.
The timing of the ethics commission inquiry and the leak of that news, taking place with the 2003 primary election six months away, make it “absolutely” political, said Cavanagh.