2009-2010 Rock the Capital and the FBI File Against PA Senator Robert J. Mellow

• July 15, 2009: Revelations that taxpayers spent more than $200,000 to lease an office for state Sen. Robert J. Mellow in a building partly owned by his wife and later himself, the senate president said today that he would introduce a resolution banning such rental arrangements.

Between 2001 and 2006, the Senate paid more than $160,000 to rent the property on Main Street in Peckville from a business half-owned by Mellow's then-wife, Diane Mellow. In the time Sen. Mellow was a part owner, the state paid the business about $48,000 in rent, records show. His wife was listed as a co-owner but claims she knew nothing about the arrangement. (“Philadelphia Inquirer,” Mario F. Cattabiani and John Sullivan July 15, 2009.)

Rock the Capital filed two sets of Conflict of Interest relating to Mr. Mellow’s roles in banking and health insurance companies.

• March 15, 2010: The FBI announced that a criminal investigation was filed today in the U.S. District Court in Scranton charging former Pennsylvania State Senator Robert J. Mellow, age 70, of Archbald, Pennsylvania, with conspiring with others between 2006 and 2010 to commit mail fraud in connection with a scheme and artifice to defraud the Pennsylvania Senate and to file a false federal income tax return.

Senator Robert Mellow could be eligible for an annual taxpayer-funded state pension amounting to nearly three times his $110,250 salary when he leaves office in November based on the research of R.B. Swift. Mr. Mellow was eligible to collect the bulk of his pension through the state government's defined-benefit plan. In addition, Mr. Mellow can collect supplemental pension benefits to reach a minimum $313,000 annual payment which he may be getting through the little-known state-run Benefits Completion Plan.

•November 16, 2010: Rock the Capital files a Request for Senate Ethics Committee Investigation and Senate Resolution Censuring Senate Minority Leader Robert J. Mellow

• December 8, 2017: The State Employees’ Retirement System board voted 6-5 to reinstate convicted felon Robert Mellow’s pension. The former Democratic state senator from the Scranton area, who served in the Legislature’s upper chamber for 40 years, was sentenced on federal fraud-related charges tied to his use of state-funded staff members to raise money and work on political campaigns.

$245,000 yearly pension plus $1.3 million more for convicted former lawmaker.

“Everybody knows it’s wrong,” said Capitol watchdog Eric Epstein of Rock the Capital. “The problem is the legislature doesn’t have the cajones to fix the loophole that currently exists.”

Epstein says that lawmakers have been aware of the problem for years. “The reason the loophole has not been closed is there’s a lot of people profiting from going through the loophole.” That nearly quarter-of-a-million-dollar-a-year pension won’t be the only thing under Mellow’s tree. ABC27 confirmed he’ll be paid for the 66 months his pension was suspended. That’s right, back pay. It’ll be a lump sum of at least $1.3 million.

“That’s obscene,” Epstein said. “What it says is that crime not only pays in Pennsylvania but it pays with compound interest.”