crime

The long expected criminal charges in the Mass Pike's mightily botched Big Dig project have finally landed on the project's major contractor Modern Continental Corp (Mod Con is the irresistible abbreviant). The company reacted yesterday by filing for bankruptcy.
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The AP is reporting that Massachusetts state police are charging ten current and former toll collectors of the Massachusetts Turnpike Authority with theft of tolls. A Suffolk District Attorney is quoted as saying that the charges are the result of a seven month long investigation. The toll collectors were taking anything between $20 and $150 per shift. 1129 words  read more »

You've got to love the candor of these villains! Politico newspaper in Washington DC reports June 17 p1, p19 under the headline "Loan probe called Pandora's Box" that the Republican leadership in the House of Representatives say they won't be calling for an investigation into Friend of Angelo loans "because they didn't know what it might reveal."
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You wouldn't read it in a work of fiction, it would be too far-fetched. Nothing however is too absurd in Pennsylvanian government, it seems.

Vincent Fumo the most notoriously corrupt politician in the state who shortly will be spending his days in US Court facing no less than 139 charges of public corruption is - he claims - sponsoring ethics reform at the Pennsylvania Turnpike.

We aren't making this up.

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Florida Governor Charlie Crist has vetoed corrupt legislation pushed through the legislature by House speaker Marco Rubio - legislation he admitted would protect the gasoline franchise on the Turnpike of a patron and supporter Max Alvarez.
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Joseph Fischbach, a toll plaza superintendent on the southern part of the Garden State Parkway has been sentenced to three years in jail after pleading guilty to stealing over $11k in tolls.

A judge in state superior court also ordered Fischbach to repay the money he stole.

He was arrested in May 2007 after an investigation established he was regularly taking coins from the coin vaults of automatic coin machines.

TOLLROADSnews 2008-04-26

The Massachusetts Ethics Commission has charged former Massachusetts Turnpike Authority (MTA) chairman and CEO Matt Amorello with altering the Turnpike's sick pay benefits rule to his personal benefit on the day before he announced his retirement in July 2006. The Commission says Amorello changed retirement rules under which he was entitled to $15k of sick leave compensation to a rule which provided him with $75k. 767 words  read more »

Central Florida state's attorney Lawson Lamar said today that a Grand Jury he impanelled to consider corruption charges against staff and board members of the Orlando Orange County (Toll) Expressway Authority (OOCEA) will not be pressing any criminal charges. Instead they will merely present criticism of political fund raising and other dubious practices at the toll agency.
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Air pollution scaremongering long been used by environmental groups to block the road building needed to alleviate congestion - even though the resulting stop-&-go and idling traffic worsens emissions. In many US metro areas air quality data have been misused by environmentalists and their friends in the regulatory agencies to bar all lane additions - except for HOV lanes. And they are wastefully empty.
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State senator Vincent Fumo was quoted at the weekend as saying of the Pennsylvania Turnpike under the present arrangements: "(It) is what it is, and I think it works very well." (Harrisburg Patriot-News 2007-09-08)  read more »

Powers Fasteners Inc, the Brewster NY based supplier of epoxy for ceiling anchors in the Massachusetts Turnpike's Big Dig tunnels has been indicted on a charge of manslaughter. Massachusetts attourney-general Martha Coakley announced the charge today. A Suffolk County grand jury has issued the indictment.
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A company supplying 'off' concrete to the Massachusetts Turnpike's Big Dig is settling with the state of Massachusetts and the US for up to $125m but six fired staff are being prosecuted individually for criminal conspiracy and fraud. 1011 words  read more »

Peter Ruane of the DC road builder lobby ARTBA had a letter in the Wall Street Journal (July 9) belittling the potential contribution of tolls and private capital, and he claimed USDOT endorsement. He chided the Journal editorial writers saying private capital for roads "is not the panacea you proclaim," continuing: "An August 2006 U.S. 1674 words  read more »

Timothy Carson vice-chair of the Pennsylvania Turnpike Commission says that the Turnpike may have been a haven for patronage and boondoggles in the past but that's all history now. The Pittsburgh Tribune quotes him: "We're not your father's turnpike."

In truth the patronage and boondoggles are bigger and more blatant than ever.
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Scott Pignone, assistant state attorney in charge of investigations into corruption in Orlando killed himself this morning according to his boss district state attorney Lawson Lamar.

Just last week Pignone gained indictments against Ron Pecora, former marketing and PR consultant to the Orlando toll authority and Doug Guetzloe, an anti-toll activity who was paid $107,500 in hush money by the toll authority in a scandal that has rocked the authority the past six months, leading to the departure of the authority chairman Allan Keen.

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Anti-toll activist Doug Guetzloe who was paid $107,500 in hush money by the Orlando Orange County Expressway Authority (OOCEA) was today indicted by a grand jury on two counts of perjury, and the man who paid him on behalf of the toll authority Ron Pecora, PR consultant to the authority was indicted on a charge of bribery and providing unlawful compensation. The charges are only indirectly related and are likely only the beginning of a series of other charges in the corruption affair that has unfolded in Orlando.  read more »