Eachus fixes error about flight on jet

State House Majority Leader Todd Eachus now says he didn’t have to get back to Harrisburg to vote the day he took a round-trip ride on admitted felon Robert Powell’s jet.

Eachus on Thursday said he glanced at his calendar when he spoke with a Times Leader reporter on Wednesday and thought Jan. 31, 2007 – the day of the flight – was a voting session day in the House, when actually, it was a non-voting session day.

As it turns out, Eachus said, he had meetings scheduled in Harrisburg that morning in 2007, and the only way he could make it to a press conference at a Hazleton area industrial park on time was to take Powell’s private jet.

The issue broke on Wednesday when The Times Leader asked Democrat Eachus and Tarah Toohil, his Republican challenger in the 116th Legislative District race, whether either of them had spent time at the condominium of disgraced former Luzerne County judges Michael Conahan and Mark Ciavarella or traveled on Powell’s jet.

The newspaper posed the same questions to county judicial candidates in the 2009 primary election.

Former county Judge Michael Toole, who has agreed to plead guilty to corruption charges, and former county Judge Peter Paul Olszewski Jr., who lost his retention bid, had said they stayed at the condo for a brief time – Olszewski in 2005, Toole in 2006 – but had no idea the condo was part of a fraudulent scheme that Conahan and Ciavarella were accused of devising.

Prosecutors allege Conahan and Ciavarella accepted $2.8 million in bribes and kickbacks during a several-year period from Powell, the onetime co-owner of the PA Child Care and Western PA Child Care juvenile detention centers, and Robert Mericle, of Mericle Construction, which built the facilities.

Ties to courthouse corruption became an issue in the 116th last week when Eachus and Toohil tried to link each other to figures in the federal corruption probe.

Both candidates had said they never stayed at the judges’ condo, and Toohil said she never rode on Powell’s jet.

Eachus had said he accepted a free ride from Harrisburg to Hazleton and back because it was the only way he could make it back to the state Capitol in time to cast votes, and that the round trip was his only flight on Powell’s jet.

A check of the Legislative Journal, however, showed no votes were cast on the House floor that day; the House convened at 11 a.m. and adjourned at 11:02 a.m.

But, Eachus also served on three House committees at the time, so The Times Leader on Wednesday requested records of committee votes from the Assistant House Counsel & Right-to-Know Administrator.

The newspaper received no immediate response, but Eachus called a reporter on Thursday to say he realized he made an error when he said he had to get back to Harrisburg to vote.

He said he had meetings that morning with various officials and he took Powell’s jet to Hazleton so he could be on time for a press conference announcing plans by Gladstone Partners, in which Powell was a partner, to construct a $1.6 billion cargo airport just south of Hazleton.

Dave George, Eachus’ campaign spokesman, said Eachus met at 9 a.m. with Judy Hample and Mary Webber of the Pennsylvania State System of Higher Education; at 9:30 a.m. with Temple University President Jeff Sharp, state Rep. Keith McCall and two others; and at 10 a.m. with state Rep. Rosita Youngblood and then state Rep. Tommy Blackwell. Eachus was scheduled to depart for the airport at 10:30 a.m. and the rest of his day was blocked off until 4:30 p.m., Georges said.

“Something is fishy here,” Toohil said in an e-mailed response to a request for comment. “Mr. Eachus’s clarification only came after he was confronted with hard evidence to the contrary. I can only hope that Mr. Eachus is finally telling the truth.”