Posted by By Eric Zager at 5 October, at 11 : 29 AM Print

Senator Robert Mellow (D-District 22)

Neither embattled Senator Robert Mellow (pictured),or Ethics Committee Chairman, Senator Charles McIlhinney will talk about an investigation in to Senator Mellow’s questionable relationship with Blue Cross of Northeastern Pennsylvania.

The Senate Ethics committee voted last week to “stay” its investigation – in other words put it off indefinitely. Mellow, the longest serving Senator in Pennsylvania, intends to retire at the end of the year.

RocktheCapital has tried every business day since Friday to talk to Senators’ McIlhinney and Mellow. Here, is the response we got on Tuesday from a secretary in Mellow’s district office, in Peckville, “the Senator is not available today or tomorrow – he will be out of the area on personal issues.”

Mellow is not facing any criminal charges; however, the FBI and IRS are also scrutinizing his behavior after carting off boxes of documents from the Senator’s office and home over the summer.

Senator McIlhinney has not returned calls to RTC – which, leaves Eric Epstein, one of the founders of this site to sum it up this way, “This is a retirement gift for Bob Mellow that allows the Senate to ignore a breakdown in its internal controls. Unless the Senate is coordinating an investigation with the FBI and the IRS, the complaint is DOA. Bottom line: Self-policing policies regarding public servic and political promotion are a cruel joke.”

Epstein is the one that brought Mellow’s potential conflict of interest to the Ethics Board last February.

While the Ethics Committee is putting off its investigation – – we here, at RTC will keep trying to uncover the reasons behind the committee’s decision, or lack of one.

This post was written by:

Eric Zager - who has written 323 posts for Rock The Capital

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Legal Pennsylvania Issues Political Watch Dog ethics committee, FBI, Investigation, IRS, Mellow, Senator