The State Ethics Commission notified the former director of the Intergovernmental Cooperation Authority that he failed to file proper financial disclosures and must do so to avoid possible civil fines or criminal charges.
Henry Sciortino last filed with the agency in 2005, commission executive director Robert P. Caruso said.
But an ICA attorney said he recently received Mr. Sciortino’s statements for 2011 through 2014.
“These documents were emailed to me by Mr. Sciortino’s counsel on April 27, 2016. The ICA to my knowledge does not possess original versions of them, and therefore makes no representations as to their content,” Matthew Haverstick wrote in an email.
Mr. Caruso said those statements from 2011 through 2014 aren’t on file with his office.
The commission sent the notice of noncompliance recently to Mr. Sciortino, Mr. Caruso said.
He has 20 days to respond. If he doesn't, another letter would give him ten more days. After that, the commission could initiate a civil penalty proceeding for each failure to file and could impose a $250 civil fine, if the violation is found to have been caused by an oversight.
“However, if it is shown that the failure to file was intentional or that the not filing was done to avoid reporting conflicts or to avoid reporting certain creditors or sources of income, there are criminal penalties” for that misdemeanor crime, Mr. Caruso said.
Mr. Sciortino could not be reached for comment Friday. But in an April 6 email to state legislators, he wrote, “as an employee of a government agency, I have fully complied with the law, and filed all required annual financial interest forms.”
That email was quoted in an affidavit filed with district attorney’s search warrants, which were executed last month on PNC Bank and the ICA’s downtown office, amid an investigation by local, state and federal agencies into the authority’s record keeping.
Detective Kevin Flanigan wrote in the affidavit that he found no such filings for the last five years when he checked commission records and believed Mr. Sciortino didn’t file the forms to hide a judgment against him.
Among Mr. Sciortino’s employers listed in the four statements given to Mr. Haverstick is Capitol Ideas, Inc., a corporation registered with the state that was created by Mr. Sciortino and his wife, Laura, out of their West Chester home.
His 2010 bankruptcy filing described it as a “consulting company that has no going concern value, minor hard assets, but some receivables,” plus a retirement account and “some offsetting liabilities.”
At the time, Capitol Ideas owed money to an attorney and to Fairmount Capital Advisors, a company with which Mr. Sciortino was employed from 2000 to 2004. Fairmount later sued Mr. Sciortino, alleging that he took some of its business with him when he left the firm, and won a verdict and a judgment in the amount of $838,322.89. The city hired Fairmount to guide it through a debt refinance in 2008.
Mr. Sciortino also listed a dentist as a source of income in all of the years. The dentist, Eric Goldberg of Exton, did not return calls from comment.
The deposed ICA director indicated that he was a volunteer at Holcomb Behavioral Health Systems, which helps people with mental health, substance abuse, intellectual and developmental disabilities. No one at Holcomb was available to comment Friday.
The ICA’s board voted last month not to renew the month-to-month contract with Mr. Sciortino, though he remains on the payroll through the end of the month while no longer being involved in its affairs.
Pittsburgh officials have said gambling revenue was wrongly withheld by the ICA and has sued to compel its release. The ICA has made piecemeal releases, but the city finance director said that as of March, it was owed $18.9 million.
Lexi Belculfine: lbelculfine@post-gazette.com. Rich Lord: rlord@post-gazette.com.
First Published: May 7, 2016, 4:00 a.m.
