Colleagues note DA candidate De Boef's 'personable' nature

By Mike Joseph

- mjoseph@centredaily.com

After Tony De Boef completed a University of Iowa undergraduate program 26 years ago, he spent two years with Up With People, the international touring group of college students and new graduates that promotes good will.

CDT photo/Nabil K. Mark

Tony De Boef served as an assistant district attorney under Ray Gricar and is one of three Democratic candidates for Centre County district attorney in next week’s primary election.

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“I call it my broadening-of-my-horizons experience,” said De Boef, 48, a Ferguson Township resident and one of three Democratic candidates for Centre County district attorney in the May 19 primary election.

That youthful experience — he was an advance man to make sure scheduled stops on the tours went smoothly — also added to his people skills.

That’s evident in comments from two criminal prosecutors who’ve never met each other but who have worked with De Boef at different times — one in Iowa and one in Centre County.

In Clinton County, Iowa, where De Boef worked as a prosecutor from 1989 to 1993 after earning a Kansas University law degree, Bruce Ingham recalls De Boef’s personality first and foremost.

“I remember him because he was such an upbeat guy,” said Ingham, who was Clinton County’s first assistant district attorney (Iowa calls them county attorneys) when De Boef worked in the office.

“I used to tell him that the difference between us is that you’re an Up With People type of person and I’m an ‘up yours’ type of person,” said Ingham, now an Iowa public defender.

“I remember him certainly as a competent prosecuting attorney,” Ingham said. “If he had not been competent I probably would have remembered that, because I would have had to backstop him at some point. I don’t ever recall having to field complaints about him from judges. He doesn’t stick out, but I know we missed him when he left, because of the personality mostly.”

In Centre County, Assistant District Attorney Steve Sloane, a registered Republican with no political allegiance to any of the Democratic candidates, has known De Boef as both a fellow prosecutor and defense attorney adversary. Sloane struck a remarkably similar note to Iowa’s Ingham.

“Tony is a very personable person,” Sloane said. “When Tony walks into the room, you know he’s in the room. He’s just a very friendly person. I don’t think he makes any enemies whatsoever. And he’s definitely competent to prosecute cases.”

When De Boef moved from Iowa to Pennsylvania in the fall of 1993, Centre County District Attorney Ray Gricar was expanding his staff and asked De Boef to become the office’s fifth assistant prosecutor.

De Boef remained an assistant prosecutor for six years, handling among other things the death penalty argument in the trial of Walter Chruby, who was convicted of first-degree murder in the 1995 slaying of 73-year-old State College resident W. Ruth Fergus.

In 1998, De Boef left the DA’s office to join the law firm of Bob Mitinger. As a defense attorney, De Boef faced his former boss Gricar at trial once, in the 2003 sexual assault trial of Penn State football player Anwar Phillips, and won an acquittal after the jury deliberated three hours.

“It’s attention to detail and looking at things in a way from both sides that gives me the ability to be a better prosecutor now,” De Boef said, “because I can know what’s worked and not worked as a defense attorney.”

During this spring’s campaign, at least one supporter of rival Democratic candidate Stacy Parks Miller has sought to make an issue of a liquor license owned by De Boef’s spouse, attorney Faith Lucchesi, and two other partners who own the Philips Hotel in downtown Philipsburg.

An associated issue has been a question of whether a $1 million state redevelopment appropriation to the hotel for HVAC, electrical work and room renovation — to be matched by the owners under a program to help Philipsburg recover from a downtown fire four years ago — could create any liabilities for Philipsburg or the county.

Robert Jacobs, director of the Centre County Planning and Community Development Office, who shepherded the grant application through the state bureaucracy, said there is no potential liability for either the borough or the county in connection with the appropriation.

Francesca Chapman, spokeswoman for the Pennsylvania Liquor Control Board, said it is not an issue for a licensee to be married to a law enforcement officer and it is “certainly not an issue ... to be married to a candidate.”

If De Boef were to become district attorney after the November election, Chapman said, it would still be OK for his wife to hold the liquor license because she is not a law enforcement officer and he does not hold the license.

“Even if he wins, it should not be an issue,” Chapman said.

De Boef himself said he is not in any corporation that has anything to do with the Philips Hotel business. If he does become district attorney, De Boef said, “my wife will divest herself of any ownership in the license or the partnership.”

“That definitely makes it easy,” Chapman said. “Her divestiture would certainly eliminate even an appearance of possible impropriety.”