Heading into the final weekend before Election Day, millionaire businessman Stephen O’Donnell continues on his bizarre path of media events claiming a “fake ad.” Rather than explaining the accurate substance of the ad — his disastrous record of bankrupting a Greensburg non-profit funded by the taxpayers and established to provide housing for the mentally disabled and homeless — Mr. O’Donnell is choosing to focus on a camera shot used in the ad.
The B-roll film of O’Donnell approaching the camera and shoving it aside is used in Murphy’s ad reminding voters of how O’Donnell profited from the bankruptcy of a Westmoreland County charity that he ran in the mid-1990s.
This morning, O’Donnell held a sparsely attended press conference bemoaning his being caught on camera when he showed up at Murphy campaign headquarters on September 26. Not knowing O’Donnell’s intentions, Murphy’s campaign staff began to videotape his actions.
As can be clearly seen in the footage (see link), O’Donnell parked his car at the campaign headquarter parking lot, walked over to the campaign staff, and shoved the camera down. O’Donnell falsely claims the staff charged at him.
O’Donnell’s business dealings were the subject of a 21-part investigation by the Greensburg Tribune-Review at the height of the scandal. The content of the ad focuses on — as described in the newspaper articles — O’Donnell’s role as the head of a non-profit meant to help the homeless and disabled. According to the reportage, O’Donnell steered hundreds of thousands in taxpayer dollars to a for-profit enterprise that he owned.
Talk of these shady practices, which were called a “conflict of interest” by the Commonwealth of Pennsylvania but self-praised as a “creative business approach” by O’Donnell, is not new in O’Donnell’s political career. During the 2006 primary for state house, Democratic Representative Joe Markosek brought O’Donnell’s handiwork to the attention of voters. And just this past April, Democratic Congressional candidate Beth Hafer stated that O’Donnell “mismanaged $1.3 million of taxpayer money.”
“If Steve would like to get back to talking about the issues in this election, he should start by explaining how his plan to raise taxes will kill jobs and hurt hard-working families in Southwestern PA. His support of increased income taxes, payroll taxes, taxes on your nest egg of stocks and bonds, taxes on oil and gas, is precisely the wrong prescription for Pennsylvania,” said campaign spokesman Bob Holste.
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Link to video: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=brT-CeYTZ5I
News clips from the Tribune-Review 21-story investigation of Mr. O’Donnell and the bankruptcy available upon request.
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