State Ethics Commission investigating indicted Lower Southampton deputy constable
For the past five years, a Lower Southampton deputy state constable charged with using his private businesses as part of a money laundering scheme hasn't filed mandatory documents that require the listing of outside financial interests of publicly elected officials, according to the Pennsylvania Ethics Commission.
The executive director of the commission on Thursday said the agency has opened a formal investigation into whether Bernard Rafferty, 62, intentionally avoided filing the disclosures to conceal a conflict of interest. Intentionally withholding information in a statement of financial interest is a misdemeanor crime that carries a potential penalty of a $2,500 fine or a year in prison.
Rafferty opened at least two businesses after he stopped filing the required financial disclosure forms, according to state business and ethics commission records. One of the businesses — Raff’s Consulting — figures prominently in the U.S. Attorney's money-laundering case involving Rafferty and two co-defendants.
Rafferty, along with District Judge John Waltman, 59, of Lower Southampton, and Lower Southampton Director of Public Safety Robert P. Hoopes, 69, of Doylestown, were indicted by a grand jury earlier this month in federal court in Philadelphia for conspiring to launder $400,000 believed to be proceeds of health care fraud, illegal drug trafficking and bank fraud, according to an indictment.
Read more: http://www.theintell.com/news/local/state-ethics-commission-investigating-indicted-lower-southampton-deputy-constable/article_c4c530ff-46dc-5263-a88c-bd693fdf2bad.html
