From an editorial in yesterday's Philadelphia Inquirer:
Meanwhile, the beauty queen continues to get paid. Bertugli - crowned Miss Rain Day 2001 at a Greene County beauty pageant - was 21 in 2004 when she met DeWeese's former chief of staff, Michael Manzo, 35, at a bar. They shared drinks and then had a tryst in a car.
The following year the beauty queen was given a state job as a researcher in a field office above a cigar store in Pittsburgh. By 2006, her salary jumped 42 percent to $30,000, plus she got a $7,000 bonus.
Bertugli remains on the state payroll, and now makes $45,344. DeWeese defended her employment because she cooperated with investigators and told the truth.
So to sum up: A beauty queen given a state job in return for sex remains on the public payroll. But Shaffer, the whistleblower who alerted prosecutors to his boss' family hires, remains out of work.
That in a nutshell sums up how a number of elected representatives conduct taxpayers' business in Harrisburg.
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