Hafer pleads guilty to lying to FBI about payments

HARRISBURG — Former state Treasurer Barbara Hafer pleaded guilty Friday to lying to the FBI as part of a sweeping pay-to-play investigation of Pennsylvania state government.

Ms. Hafer, 73, of Indiana, Pa., was charged last summer along with one of her largest campaign donors, Richard Ireland, a wealthy Chester County businessman. She was accused of misleading the FBI and IRS about nearly $700,000 in payments to her consulting firm by Mr. Ireland between 2005 and 2007, after she left office.

She had faced two counts of making false statements and was to go on trial next week but pleaded guilty to one such count before U.S. District Judge John E. Jones III. The maximum penalty for that offense is five years in prison and a $250,000 fine, although under sentencing guidelines, the judge could impose a punishment ranging from probation to six months in prison.

Ms. Hafer, a longtime Republican-turned-Democrat, had no comment as she left court. Her lawyer, Thomas Farrell, also declined to comment on her plea, which made no mention of cooperation with federal authorities.

And during the plea hearing, Ms. Hafer kept her responses short as Judge Jones asked whether she understood the nature of the proceedings. She listened intently as the prosecutor in the case, Michael Consiglio, outlined the facts of the case against her, and gave a twoword response when Judge Jones asked whether they were an accurate reflection of her actions. “They are,” she said. Ms. Hafer’s decision to plead guilty on the eve of her trial brought to a close the last case — at least one in which charges were filed — in the long-running federal investigation of corruption in Harrisburg. The probe led to a guilty plea from John Estey, the onetime chief of staff to former Gov. Ed Rendell, and toppled one of Ms. Hafer’s successors, former state Treasurer Rob McCord.

Mr. McCord, a Democrat, pleaded guilty in 2015 to attempting to shake down campaign contributors and resigned in the middle of his second term in office.

Ms. Hafer’s case stems from statements she made to federal authorities more than a decade after leaving the office of the treasurer.

Ms. Hafer had initially claimed lapses in memory in denying that she accepted $675,000 in consulting payments from Mr. Ireland after leaving office. According to the indictment against her, Mr. Ireland, who served as a middleman helping money managers land government work, made more than $10 million in fees while Ms. Hafer ran the Treasury Department between 1997 and 2005.

Mr. Ireland went on trial in March, but in a stunning development, Judge Jones dismissed all charges against him mid-trial. Mr. Ireland had been accused of attempting to bribe Mr. McCord with campaign contributions in return for government contracts.

Mr. McCord cooperated with federal authorities in Mr. Ireland’s case. He secretly recorded his conversations with Mr. Ireland while working undercover to help the FBI and try to gain a more lenient sentence, and was the government’s star witness during Mr. Ireland’s trial. He has not been sentenced.

It was one of those secret tape recordings by Mr. McCord that led federal authorities to question Ms. Hafer in late 2014 about her relationship with Mr. Ireland, Assistant U.S. Attorney Michael Consiglio said during Ms. Hafer’s plea hearing Friday.

On the tape, Mr. Ireland is heard telling Mr. McCord that he had taken care of Ms. Hafer, who after leaving office had opened a consulting firm called Hafer and Associates. ANGELINE “ANGIE”

During her interview (GENTILE) with agents in May 2016, Ms. Hafer denied receiving money from Mr. Ireland or any businesses with which he was associated.

Agents later discovered that in 2005 alone Mr. Ireland paid Ms. Hafer’s firm $500,000 — nearly two-thirds of her firm’s business that year.

On Friday, Judge Jones scheduled a pre-sentencing conference in Ms. Hafer’s case for late September, and said that her sentencing would be set for a date after that.