Keystone Corruption: A Pennsylvania Insider s View of a State Gone Wrong traces the cyclical nature of misconduct in Pennsylvania government over the course of the last hundred years. Most of the book focuses on corruption since the 1970s, when the author had a front-row seat during the unprecedented scandals of 2007 through 2012.
Bumsted witnessed the prosecutions of current and former lawmakers for the theft of some $14 million in taxes, and he provides an insightful analysis of the rise and fall of several of Pennsylvania s most colorful political characters, including Boies Penrose, Matt Quay, R. Budd Dwyer, John Perzel, William DeWeese, Al Benedict, Ernie Preate, Jeffrey Habay, Vincent Fumo, Mike Veon, Michael Manzo and state Supreme Court Justice Joan Orie Melvin.
When it came to crimes from Bonusgate to Computergate and the Big caper Bumsted tracked the case at every turn.
BRAD BUMSTED is an award-winning Harrisburg reporter for the Pittsburgh Tribune-Review He is a well-known political analyst who regularly appears on radio and television news programs focusing on state politics. He is the co-author, with William C. Costopoulos, of Murder Is the Charge: The True Story of Mayor Charlie Robertson and the York, Pennsylvania, Riots (2004). He lives with his wife, Gail, and daughter Lindsey, in New Cumberland