Stories circulated throughout the state capitol for decades about the fraudulent squandering of funds and self dealing by the Hershey board. Hershey's is definitely the prime suspect in this mystery. But it sure would be sweet if someone blew the whistle on "charitable non-profit" international money making UPMC and its egomaniac boss, Jeffrey Romoff. I googled Redacted v. Redacted and found:
Once again, Howard Bashman of How Appealing has brought to our attention another crazy case. This one is too rich. Now who do you suppose these litigants might be? And how long can the secret be kept? - See more at: http://www.pittsburghlegalbacktalk.com/archives/6990#sthash.20MLuiJf.dpuf
However the highlighted "
crazy case" link did not work.
Interesting because the case must have gone through a county level Court of Common Pleas, and then Pennsylvania's intermediate appellate court, The Superior Court, before landing in the state supreme court, and yet the secret has not been leaked.
From the OP link:
When Kathleen Kane won the Pennsylvania state attorney general election last year, many hoped that the Hershey Trust would get some long-overdue scrutiny. The trust, majority stockholder in the Hershey chocolate company, owner of Hershey Entertainment and Resorts, and overseer of the Hershey School for disadvantaged children, had a well-established pattern of political entanglements and questionable expenditures.
Its overlapping boards, shown in the Muckety map above, created all sorts of potential conflicts.
The charity’s spending habits were examined in 2010 by the Philadelphia Inquirer, which found a litany of troubling practices, including:
* Prominent Republicans, including former Gov. Tom Ridge and Former Attorney General Leo Zimmerman, received a combined $1 million a year (each) to serve on three boards connected with the school.
* The school paid $12 million - two to three times the appraised value - for a money-losing golf course in 2006. The deal bailed out club investors, who included Richard H. Lenny, then-CEO of the Hershey Company.
* After buying a roadside attraction called Pumpkin World USA for $8.6 million, the Hershey Trust leased the business to its former owners. There were a couple of wrinkles in this deal: The price was more than nine times higher than the property’s fair-market value, and another party had planned to develop part of the land as a competitor to Hersheypark.
Robert Reese, a former board member and grandson of the creator of Reese’s peanut-butter cups, filed a court petition accusing the trust of misusing assets.
The attorney general race became a microcosm of the issues swirling around the trust. Kane promised closer scrutiny of charities, drawing strong support from Reese. Her opponent, David Freed, is the son-in-law of Leroy S. Zimmerman, who chaired the trust.
The likelihood that the case involves Hershey's Board is diminished by the fact that state AG Kane already completed a prolonged investigation of the trust , announcing a “reform agreement” with the organization. The pact limits overlapping board memberships and lowers compensation for the members.
A Philadelphia Inquirer described Kane's findings as a disappointing whitewash.
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