A Family Affair aka Nepotism At It's Finest

I’ll say one thing for Paul Kanjorski, he’s not going to have anyone in HIS family collecting unemployment checks.

His campaign committee paid his nephew, Paul Eric Kanjorski, $22,515 to work as a campaign manager.
Paul Eric was also reimbursed $19,766 in “expenses.”

Citizens For Action paid Peter $30,000 in consulting fees.
Citizens For Action is the congressman’s Political Action Committee.

Pennsylvanians for Kanjorski paid K&K Real Estate $36,000 to rent a campaign office.
Mr. Kanjorski and his brother Peter own K&K Real Estate.

But that's just small change. Remember Cornerstone Technologies?
Cornerstone Technologies was going to provide hundreds of high-tech, high paying jobs to the citizens of Northeastern Pennsylvania.
For those of you who are new to this saga, the company was run by Kanjorski's daughter and four of his nephews.
Mr. Kanjorski secured a 9.2 million dollar earmark for Cornerstone to attempt to find practical application for water-jet technology.
How did the day to day operations of the company measure up?
A former head of Penn State’s Energy Institute summed it up as “It was like the three stooges meet anthracite.”
A while back the company filed for bankruptcy, having produced nothing of value, except hefty salaries for the Kanjorski family.

Take a look at this story, which appeared in the April 7th Times Leader:


Cornerstone assets to be abandoned
$1M in claims, property worth a few thousand
ANDREW M. SEDER aseder@timesleader.com
WILKES-BARRE – The federal Bankruptcy Court-appointed trustee overseeing the Cornerstone Technologies case filed paperwork Sunday notifying more than 35 creditors that the failed-company’s assets will be abandoned. The filing signals the case is nearing closure.
Among the creditors contacted by trustee Robert P. Sheils Jr. were the Office of Naval Research, Penn State University and the University of Missouri at Rolla.
There were more than $1 million in creditor claims when Cornerstone filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy in September 2006. The property available for creditors to retrieve is worth a few thousand. Sheils classifies the property, which has been stored in the parking garage of a Nanticoke bowling alley, as having “no excess value to benefit the estate and no equity exists for creditors.”
Cornerstone Technologies, a research company that received more than $9 million in federal grants and contracts, halted operations in 2003. The company, which was operated by U.S. Rep. Paul Kanjorski’s daughter and four of his nephews, promised to create hundreds of jobs and to turn the Wyoming Valley into a technology hotspot. Kanjorski, D-Nanticoke, earmarked several million dollars in federal spending toward the company and is the reason, according to one of the company’s former employees and a listed creditor, the company failed.
“The moment we had a greedy congressman trying to stuff his pockets with money, we were through,” said Bruce Conrad, of Weatherly, in March. Conrad owned 20 percent of the company. An additional 20 percent was owned by Peter Kanjorski, a Nanticoke attorney and a nephew of the congressman. The remaining 60 percent was owned by KOR Holdings, a partnership owned by the congressman’s daughter Nancy and nephews Peter, Paul Eric, Mark and Russell.
Creditors have 15 days to file an objection to the abandonment notice. If nobody does so the property would be abandoned. Among the property are office equipment and furniture and barrels of graphite.
Attorney John H. Doran, who represents Cornerstone, said it’s likely that the property will be retained by Cornerstone once it’s abandoned. He said that’s the likely scenario with so many creditors and so little value.


Over 11 million dollars and all there is to show for it is some office equipment in a bowling alley garage? That's our Congressman, working hard for us.
Click on the lins below to read how people outside of NEPA feel about this boondoggle. You can click your browesers "back" or "return" button to come back to this page.

The Daily Mail article.

NY Times

And just because Cornerstone went belly-up thanks to his family's antics, old Paul isn't going to let them miss any meals.
Click ln the link below to read about AVA Solar, a Colorado company that just received a 3 million dollar federal earmark.
Look at the beginning of the 3rd paragraph to see who's running things.
Here we go again.


AVA SOLAR