U.S. Rep. John Murtha dies at 77

ARLINGTON, Va., Feb. 8 (UPI) -- U.S. Rep. John Murtha, D-Pa., died Monday at Virginia Hospital Center in Arlington, Va., officials said.

A statement issued by lawmaker's office said Murtha, 77, chairman of the House Appropriations Subcommittee on Defense, died with his family at his bedside.

The powerful lawmaker had been hospitalized due to complications from gall bladder removal surgery he underwent Jan. 28, only three days after becoming the longest serving representative in Pennsylvania history.

An unidentified source close to the U.S. representative told the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette that during Murtha's laparoscopic surgery, a portion of the politician's intestine was cut.

The source said the inadvertent injury caused an infection that resulted in Murtha being hospitalized at the Virginia Hospital Center on Jan. 31.

Murtha, a former Marine Corps officer, was first elected to the House of Representatives in February of 1974, when he became the first Vietnam War combat veteran elected to the U.S. Congress.

He was considered the one of Congress' most influential members on defense appropriations.

In recent years, Murtha had been dogged by allegations that he proffered government funding earmarks in exchange for campaign donations. But in December a House ethics panel dropped its probe of Murtha and two other members of the defense spending panel.

The Office of Congressional Ethics told aides for Murtha, and Reps. Norm Dicks, D-Wash., and Jim Moran, D-Va., it no longer was investigating the allegations.