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Pa. AG Corbett calls for expanded powers

4 min read

HARRISBURG, Pa. (AP) – Pennsylvania’s top prosecutor says he plans to seek from the Legislature greater authority for his office to investigate environmental and securities crimes. Attorney General Tom Corbett said his office cannot initiate its own investigations of alleged environmental abuses without a referral from the Department of Environmental Protection, a county district attorney or the Fish and Boat Commission. Referrals from the DEP alone have fallen from a high of 24 in 2002 to only 13 last year.

“If someone were to come in this door and say, ‘Hey, there’s a major polluter on the Susquehanna River doing a, b and c, and we think you ought to criminally investigate them,’ I have to refer it over to the DEP,” Corbett said in a recent interview with The Associated Press.

DEP press secretary Kurt M. Knaus said the department has made an average of 14 criminal referrals to the attorney general from 1995 through 2004, and is on pace to hit that same number this year. He declined to express an opinion about whether Corbett should be given expanded power to investigate environmental complaints.

“I can’t comment on something that isn’t drafted or something that’s just an idea right now without seeing a specific proposal and reviewing it on its merits,” Knaus said. The DEP’s figure for 2002 is 25 referrals, not 24, he said.

Corbett said he also wants to be able to act in securities cases without a referral from the Pennsylvania Securities Commission, and the ability to investigate criminal activity surrounding 14 planned slot-machine casinos around the state. He has raised the jurisdictional issues with legislators and expects to put forward a proposal after the General Assembly’s summer break.

“This office is now going into its 25th year, it’s going into its next generation, and when it was created nobody knew what they were creating. And I suspect that they limited the jurisdiction because they didn’t know what the relationship was to the district attorneys, to the Legislature (and) to state government as a whole,” he said.

Gov. Ed Rendell vetoed legislation in November that would have increased the attorney general’s duties in gambling cases. Rendell’s veto was on other grounds, however, and the governor said he supported expanding the attorney general’s gambling enforcement powers.

Corbett said his office would be better positioned than the state police to act independently of the Gaming Control Board, particularly when crimes involve state gambling officials. A role for his office is common sense, he said.

“Why the Attorney General’s Office is given the duty of reviewing every contract that the state is engaged in, or almost every contract, and was explicitly excluded from this is beyond me,” he said.

Republican Corbett, 56, won a close election in November for the office he also held for 15 months in 1995-97. He was appointed to complete the term of Ernest D. Preate Jr. after Preate pleaded guilty to a federal mail-fraud charge. Corbett also served as U.S. attorney in Pittsburgh from 1989 to 1993.

Corbett said he has more ability to set his own priorities this time around for such things as prosecuting people who abuse senior citizens and sexual predators of children. He also expects to establish a special unit to root out official corruption.

“When I came in here last time, I had the job of re-establishing the confidence of the office, the people in the office, the morale of the office. It was an office that itself had not been under investigation but its leader had been under investigation. They all felt it,” he said.

In fighting drugs – which he cited as his top priority during the campaign – he is seeking an increased emphasis on going after the dealers higher up in the supply chain. He also wants to improve how intelligence is shared among county, state and federal investigators.

But he said results may take time.

“This office is like that duck on the water – it glides across the water but its feet are paddling like crazy until we take off from the surface,” he said.

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