Fay-Penn Exposed Part 1

Something smells wrong when public money keeps flowing and regular people keep falling behind. We’re looking straight at Fayette County, Pennsylvania and asking the questions that make powerful people uncomfortable: where do public grants and economic development dollars actually go, and why do taxpayers still feel broke while insiders look protected?

I’m joined by Harry Cochran, who lays out a real-time example of how hard it can be for challengers to even get a fair shot. He explains how his state senate campaign was hit with a last-day petition challenge, why he had to bring in serious legal help, and how Commonwealth Court ultimately kept him on the ballot. If you care about election integrity and ballot access in Pennsylvania, this story shows how the process can be used as a weapon, and how it can still be fought.

We also zoom out to the bigger picture: lost businesses in towns like Dawson and Connellsville, a shrinking population, living-wage jobs that are harder to find, and seniors struggling under property taxes. Then we dig into concerns around Fay-Penn, nonprofit oversight, and the kind of red flags that show up in IRS Form 990 conversations, including related-party transactions and whether public funds are being routed into private advantage. We talk about Charity Grimm Krupa’s call for audits and why transparency is the only way back to trust.

If you want receipts, we’re committing to putting documentation out in the open and following the money. Subscribe, share this with a neighbor, and leave a review so more people hear it, then tell us: what would you audit first in your county?

Transcript

High-Voltage Line And Landowner Fears

Harry Cochran Wins Ballot Fight

SPEAKER_02 1:31

Hey everybody, this is Joe Marietta, and I am the Hillbully. And I want to thank everybody for tuning in. Today's today's show is going to be kind of a little bit of a different one, but we're going to get through it and we're going to we're going to start exposing some of the things that's going on in Fayette County. So let's get started. I'll tell you what, friends, there's a stench rising up out of this county courthouse, and it ain't from the paper mill. It's from the way the so-called elites and their pet long profits have turned public grants and development money into a private piggy bank for insiders, board members, and campaign donors, while the folks put paying the bills are left holding the bag. For years we've been running millions of your dollars through these shiny economic development outfits, making cozy deals and playing shell games with grants and loans, all while people in this county struggle with property taxes, crumbling roads, and fire halls, begging just to keep the lights on. And who finally stood up and said enough? Charity our state representative Charity Grim Krupper, throwing a holy fit in Harrisburg, calling for a full audit, an investigation, demanding that the books be open, insiders be named, and every last time of the people's money be dragged out into the light of day. I'm John Marietta, and I'm standing shoulder to shoulder with we the people and with anybody who's willing to kick over the tables this crooked temple of taxpayer abuse. I'm not under anybody's gag order. I'm not beholden to anybody's giant screen. And this microphone right here is the people's pulpit. We're gonna ask the questions elites hate most. We are we are the rest of the elite, and we're gonna ask one of the questions that's not asked near enough. Where are the rest of our elected officials? Why are so many hiding under the desk instead of standing with Charity Grimm and the taxpayers? And while they're cowering in science, here comes another burden right down the southern end of the county. A giant high voltage power line, a steel wire scar across our farms, ridges, built so the big boys can cash in while our landowners stare on survey stakes, eminent demand papers, and the future where their property is worth less, their bills are worth more. The insiders call it progress. I call it plunder with a hard hat on. They talk about regional benefits, or they drive the stakes through your backyard. And once again, it's the same story. They profit, you pay. Meanwhile, the local newspaper is tiptoeing around the truth. WMBS is acting like it, like it's none of their concern. And the so-called watchdogs of the press are sleeping on the porch while the wolf is already in the henhouse. They'll run every ribbon-cutting photo under the sun. But when it comes to NDAs, insider deals, and power line land grabs, suddenly people are they are all out to lunch. But I'll tell you what, the good book says, Woe unto them that decree unrighteous decrees, Isaiah 10. And let judgment run down as waters and righteousness as a mighty stream. That's Amos 524. That mighty stream is rising, friends. It's rolling toward every backroom deal, every sweetheart contract, every rubber stamp power line, and every politician who's who's choose comfort over conscience and silence over truth. And we're not after revenge, we're after a reckoning. And as long as Charity Grim Krupa is demanding audits, and as long as I, John Marie had a breath in my lungs and a mic in my hand, the people of Fayette County are gonna have a voice that money can't buy. I'm gonna say that one more time. We're gonna have a voice that money can't buy. Editors can't muzzle, and NDAs can't sign. Judgment is coming at the and it's coming at the ballot box in the court of public opinion and the eyes of Almighty God. I want to thank all of you for tuning in once more. I want to thank all my sponsors for helping me out with this uh podcast. And um it's it's been a good thing. I'm gonna get to uh my guest here, and his name is Harry Cochran. And Harry, I spent a lot of time with you this week.

SPEAKER_05 5:47

Sure did.

SPEAKER_02 5:48

Harry, tell us tell us what happened uh with uh with the court case. Uh people really I think need to know.

SPEAKER_05 5:56

Well, what happened? We circulated petitions to run for state senator. And uh we had our signatures and uh we fouled them and paid the filing fee and came home and assumed we were on the ballot. And the very last day that they could challenge to take me off the ballot, they don't want me to run, they challenged my petition. So I had to spend a lot of additional money. Hire a top-notch lawyer to fight this. You can't just, you know, walk in the court by yourself, the Commonwealth Court. And uh the lawyer did an excellent job. And uh we learned yesterday afternoon around 3 p.m. that the uh petition was discharged by the Commonwealth Court, and we will remain and we are in the ballot, we're remaining there, and it's a breath of fresh air to me that we have a chance to finally do something. So I'm looking forward to it.

SPEAKER_02 6:46

Well, I I I tell you what, thank you. I want to thank you so much, Harry, for stepping up and doing what you're doing. It uh it's a good good thing.

SPEAKER_05 6:53

Someone has to step up. This is all out of control and failure.

unknown 6:56

Yeah.

Small Town Decline And Lost Jobs

SPEAKER_02 6:57

So let's get started with the show. We're gonna kind of do an introductory show to what we're we're talking about, and then we're gonna move forward and uh expose a lot of other things. I gotta start with a very simple question. Let's take a minute and think about our town, your town, my town, whoever's town, here in Faye County, your street, your family. Are things better now? Or are they worse than they used to be?

SPEAKER_05 7:27

I was a boy. I mean, I I grew up in between two towns, Dawson and Connellsville. And we had farms in Dawson, and uh I remember we had 25 businesses in Dawson. They're gone. Connellsville, we had uh five different railroads going through Connellsville, we had uh three movie theaters, we had uh seven drug stores, uh two five and tens, many, many good uh stores, uh clothing stores there. We had uh probably four tailors. You could get tailor-made suits at four different places in Connellsville. We had a radio station, we had 12 new car dealers in the city, limits, not out in the 119. Uh that's all gone. It's gone, John. It's a different you know, if I would have been put to sleep 40 years ago and been an awakened this morning, I'd think it's in a spook show. It's unbelievable.

SPEAKER_02 8:22

I never thought about that, but yeah, that'd be kind of like uh Rip Van Winkle waking up and not um All right. Let's talk about what what we've seen here in just in Fayette County in the in the in the recent years, even just even in the last five, six years. The population is going down incredibly. Good living wage jobs are hard to find. And young people are leaving. This is the part that really distresses me because I have grandkids, I have seven grandkids, Harry, and I want them all to stay on a farm, but I know that's not gonna happen. But young people are leaving, we're losing the best and the brightest year after year, Harry. And families are struggling, and the seniors, this is the main thing. They're they're struggling just to pay their property taxes so they can stay in their home and keep the uh keep the temperature at 65 degrees in wintertime.

Fay-Penn Growth And Insider Control

SPEAKER_05 9:17

Some of them can't even do that, and some of them have to worry about whether they're gonna eat or pay their pay their heat, they pay their taxes. Uncalled for. I mean, it's just it's poor management to the top. You need to turn we've lost our economic base. And it's it's really sad to think that Fayette County is considered uh one of the poorest counties in the Colour. Take the history of this county uh take what happened in 1941 when we were attacked by the Japanese. This county was asleep. Within a few months, uh this county was back, this country was back on an economic manufacturing base, Hitler, out, and then the Japanese out. And it's because of the productivity that came out of this county. The Cold Coke said they sent that to Pittsburgh, they made they made the steel and the metal, they sent it to Detroit, they made cars, they made tanks and trucks, etc. And uh we built an economic war machine, and we defeated the enemy overnight. Well, it was a miracle.

SPEAKER_02 10:21

I mean, it it was a miracle, and we've been blessed by God, there's no doubt about it. And I think here's the part that people really need to understand. There is an organization here in Fayette County, and it's supposed to help fix what what's going on. The organization's name is Fay Pen.

SPEAKER_05 10:38

Familiar with it, yes.

SPEAKER_02 10:39

Do you want to go? Do you want to expand upon that a little bit?

SPEAKER_05 10:41

Let's let's take the back in the scripture and talk about the the good tree and the bad tree. Well, you know, the the good tree bears good fruit and the bad tree has bad fruit, so you cut it down and forget it. I I consider you know we have fertilizer, you put onto the tree or onto the pasture to make the vegetation grow, and I have to replace the fertilizer and call it money now. And Fei Pen is uh sort of what you would call the uh the tree, it's it's growing bad fruit. I think Fay Pen's assets were around 10 million dollars. Today they're approximately 50 million dollars, but there's a few maybe I think a little bit more than that, Harry.

SPEAKER_02 11:19

But you're right, 50 million.

SPEAKER_05 11:21

A few of the million okay, as they grew, the county deteriorated economically. And if you look at a graph as they grow, it went down, lost, lost, and lost. You mentioned about having an economic base and and jobs here. A lot of these employers they can't begin to pay benefits, so it's hard to stay in the business. I mean, look look what look what's happened here. It's gone. And the young people are leaving in droves. Well, that's this is nothing new, it's been going on for years, it has to be stopped. And there's just a few people remaining that have to pay the taxes, and it's too much of a load on them. We have to get this money onto the streets, and that was Faye Penn's job. They they took in, they take they're the agency that takes in the federal and state monies to pass out in loans and uh contracts and what have you. And it seems like there's an elite group there that they control it who gets all of it from within. And I don't like that because we're being starved on the main street. A lot of people don't even know it's available for them. And the the the possibility that this could provide, or the probability that these people have the potential to do is going to waste, and that's a sin, they're not informed.

SPEAKER_02 12:33

Well, I I I like your analogy about the the uh the the tree that produces fruit and the tree that doesn't produce no fruit, and but this is the analogy I'm looking at. If a farmer only waters half of his field or only fertilizes one tree in the in the orchard, that's the tree that's going to produce. The rest of the field's drought. So so the analogy I I want to think about is is Bay Pen has grown over the years. Yeah, right. Over the last 13 or 14 years, Bay Pen has grown by millions and millions of dollars, right? But the county is in a in a in a steady decline. I mean, we're we're we're headed, we're headed to the edge of the cliff if we're not re I mean, we're right there right now. I mean, we're in a decline.

SPEAKER_05 13:19

Well, and there's and there's more to it just for a pen, too. We have we have the county commissioners that need to be replaced. I mean, the the the leadership here is horrible. There's no foresight. Or the and they and if there isn't any foresight, they they could they don't care.

SPEAKER_02 13:33

Well, it seems like the only the only person that that has been able to that stood up and said, Hey, wait a minute, we need to take a hard look at this, is Jerry Grim Krupa.

Audit Push And Attorney General Jurisdiction

SPEAKER_05 13:43

Well, she's a breath of fresh air. I'm really proud of her, what she did. She opened the can of worms. And I I want to reach down and take all the worms out and expose it. I really she's correct in uh inviting the attorney general Sunday to come in here, call a grand jury, and see what's going on here. We need help. We need help. But when until that happens, so I I want to, as a candidate for the state senate, I'm gonna do all I can to help expose some of this. But I really do thank Charity for what she did. Let's let's think about it slightly.

SPEAKER_00 14:18

Last year I formally requested that your office investigate serious allegations involving a nonprofit organization in Fake County that administers substantial public funding. Publicly available IRS Form 990 disclosures show repeated related party transactions over multiple years, including loans to business businesses owned by directors and multimillion dollar transactions involving board members. Now, I understand that you can't comment on um any pending investigation. So I'm gonna ask generally when a nonprofit receives public funds and those um those nonprofits show repeated insider financial transactions, does that fall within your jurisdiction under nonprofit laws or breach of fiduciary duty standards? Um and I ask for the people of Fake County who deserve some transparency with respect to how these taxpayer funds are seemingly being sent, being um used to line the pockets of board members.

SPEAKER_01 15:16

So to begin with, the short answer is yes, that's what we're here for. And I obviously can't discuss ongoing investigations, whether they exist or not. Um but what I can say very simply is we take these allegations very, very seriously. And again, to your point earlier, with the resources we have, we we do everything we can with the resources we have. And so I know my time is up. That being said, I have with me today behind me um the head of our public protection division, um Sean Kirkpatrick, who um would I have no doubt he would be more than happy to speak to you off the record or separately about any specific case you want to talk about.

SPEAKER_00 15:53

Thank you very much.

SPEAKER_01 15:54

Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 15:56

Okay, so Harry, back to back to that again. Your opponent has been in office now for been on the board for two years.

SPEAKER_05 16:04

Okay, and uh that's one of the things that really bothers me. What kind of leadership's that? State Senator, that's an important position. He should be said something. That's uh that's one of the reasons I'm writing.

SPEAKER_02 16:19

Well, and and we also have to look at a couple other things here, Harry. And then you've mentioned it. The the leadership in the county has failed us. I mean, terribly. The last we've had how many we've had tax increases in the last six years that have totaled over 70 percent. We've uh we've also had we we've had one commissioner that's been in office. I'll just say his name. I'm not afraid of him. I'll say his name. Vince Facides has been in there long enough. He's like the Nancy Pelosi of Fayette County. We need we we need change. We have another, we have another uh uh uh commissioner that needs to we need to bring out into the open lake, too. What's going on here? I mean, the money is being spent, the money's flowing into the county, but it isn't getting to the right people.

SPEAKER_05 17:05

The leadership's abysmal, and you know if they have uh maybe they have no foresight, and uh that would I understand if they don't they don't, but if they do have foresight, they really don't care. That makes it even worse. They're doing it because they want to, not because they don't know anybody. Understand? That makes it a lot worse.

SPEAKER_02 17:25

So this is one of the things I wanna I wanna I wanna tell you about, right? I want to talk about we're gonna summarize all this. The county's in decline, Fink Penn is growing, getting bigger and bigger, and the promise doesn't match the results. Not at all. So what's next?

Posting Documents And Following The Money

SPEAKER_05 17:47

We need to change things right right now. I mean, we're uh that's why I'm running for the state senate. And I and and next year I want to see county commissioners replaced, uh and I'd like to see something done that uh I will I'll stop there right now. Something has to be done with the APA. It's just out of hand. But never charity said uh uh some of these cronnies on the board, they get the loans and they get the contracts, and uh we'll get to that. The average person does a lot of people don't even know this is available for them at FAPE.

SPEAKER_02 18:21

Well, one of the things I want to throw out there right now is uh uh all the documentation that we're gonna put out there is gonna be available on Marietta Broadcasting Network.com backslash fake pen. Marietta Broadcasting Network.com backslash fake pen. It's also gonna be up on uh uh Harry's page so people can review it. And uh and what I want everybody to understand is if if I'm if I'm not right, you prove me wrong. I mean that's exactly what it is out with the fact that we're gonna put the facts out and what they are.

SPEAKER_05 18:56

But the potentials here that the people are just given a chance. If it's a crime, they're not.

SPEAKER_02 19:03

So the next time we're gonna go the on the next segment of this, we're gonna go deeper and we are gonna follow the money. I want to thank everybody for tuning in. This is John Marietta. I am the hillbilly. And as I close all my shows, on this road called life, you have to take the good with the bad. Smile when you're sad, love what you got, remember what you had. Always forgive, but never forget. People change, things go wrong. Just remember the ride goes on. God bless each and every one of you, and God bless America. I am John Marietta, and I am the hillbilly.