McCullough questions drew irate answers
A day after his work for widowed millionaire Shirley Jordan became a public scandal, Charles McCullough visited Jordan at her home with a paper for her to sign, according to testimony Thursday from Jordan's paid companion Alice Greenway.
For the next two hours that day in April 2007, McCullough repeatedly asked Jordan, then 90, if she remembered giving him permission to donate thousands from her trust fund to Republican political candidates and Catholic Charities. And for two hours she denied it and refused to sign a paper saying she had approved the donations, Greenway said.
"She said ... that she hoped he would go to jail forever and burn in the fires of hell," Greenway testified about how Jordan responded after McCullough left. "It was like she was on 30-second rewind. She said for days and days that she never gave permission, and she often brought it up herself."
Allegheny County prosecutors spent parts of yesterday's preliminary hearing trying to show McCullough was abusing his power of attorney to gain lasting control of Jordan's $14.7 million estate.
McCullough, 54, an Upper St. Clair lawyer and county councilman, is charged with two dozen counts of theft, conspiracy and filing false reports in an alleged attempt to bilk $200,000 from Jordan's estate in 2006 and 2007 before his election.
Jordan of Upper St. Clair was convinced McCullough had stolen most of her money and said at least twice that she thought she had fired him, Greenway said.
McCullough could have sapped the fortune Jordan was left to live on had he succeeded in starting her charity before she died, an estate lawyer at McCullough's former firm, Eckert Seamans Cherin & Mellott, testified.
"If I was part of it, it would have never happened," said Raymond Vogliano, when shown a memo from McCullough stating intentions to move $10 million from Jordan's trust into a new foundation. "Ten million dollars is way too much of a percentage to go out of that estate, and I never would have allowed that to happen."
Prosecutors also called a former fundraiser from Catholic Charities to testify about a $10,000 donation from the Jordan trust. McCullough's wife, Patricia McCullough, a Commonwealth Court candidate, was then the executive director of the charity and demanded the donor be kept secret, said Mary Ann McGlashon, a former associate director.
The pledge came just before the black-tie Bishop's Annual Dinner where McCullough had to announce whether she met the year's fundraising goal.
Catholic Charities has an ethics protocol that prohibits totally anonymous gifts: The donor's name must be known internally to at least some staff members, McGlashon said. She testified that she told Patricia McCullough she didn't understand the suggestion of a "secret donor."
"You don't have to understand," McGlashon said that McCullough responded. "You just have to keep your mouth shut about it."
