By Ralph Cipriano

In a just-the-facts monotone, former veteran Philly cop turned private investigator Frank D. Wallace told a federal jury today how he spent his nights collecting $150 an hour tailing Vince Fumo’s former girlfriend to Jersey Shore bars.

It was just another assignment from the senator, and no questions were asked, said Wallace, who sounded like a world-weary Joe Friday, collecting another payday. When he first got the job, Wallace told the jury, the senator explained he "was concerned this Dottie Egrie was drinking too much."

The private investigator, testifying under a prosecution grant of immunity, told the jury about Fumo’s tough-love prescription for Egrie: Fumo wanted to make sure Wallace was around when she was drunk so he could summon local cops to bust the former girlfriend with a DUI. That was supposed to straighten her out, the detective explained to the jury.

So Wallace told the jury how on eight or nine occasions over a period of months, he dutifully followed Egrie around town for six to eight hours at a time. "He (Fumo) was concerned with the fella she was dating at the time," Wallace explained. On the night of October 10, 2000, the investigator testified that he followed Egrie and her new boyfriend, who had previously lost his license for a drunken driving arrest, to a bar in Margate, N.J. called Tomatoes.

Sure enough, Wallace told the jury, while he sat in his car and watched, Egrie came out of the bar staggering. "She was bombed with a capital B," the private investigator wrote Fumo in an e-mail.

But this job was the rare one where the hard-bitten former cop had to admit on the witness stand that he not only failed to carry out his assignment, but also that he lied about it to his boss.

"I kind of thought he (Fumo) wanted to get even with her," explained Wallace, a Philadelphia cop for 28 years before he retired as an inspector. "They had broken up and I think he wanted to give her a shot," Wallace told the jury.

In an e-mail exchange about the surveillance detail the senator had dubbed "Operation Live Stop," Wallace told Fumo "I called the police" and they didn’t show. But in reality, Wallace told the jury, he didn’t have the heart to summon the cops.

"I didn’t want to get that girl in trouble," Wallace explained.

It was the rare assignment that Wallace balked at. For more than two hours today, Wallace gave jurors a riveting look at the political and personal espionage he had conducted on behalf of the state senator from 2000 to 2006. Wallace talked about how he was paid to snoop on Fumo’s ex-wife, political opponents, former Philadelphia Mayor Ed Rendell, and even a couple of topless dancers.

All of this work fell under a contract that Wallace had with the state Senate Appropriations Committee. The private investigator told a jury how he was paid by the taxpayers on a month-by-month basis a total of $235,000 over six years. The orders about who would be his espionage targets came from only two people, Wallace told the jury, the senator himself or Fumo’s chief of staff. And the vast majority of the jobs, "most, if not all of them, related to personal and political assignments" for the benefit of the senator, Wallace testified.

"It was the best single client I had," Wallace told the jury. "Senator Fumo was aware of everything. He was the ultimate control freak. The man never slept."

Fumo, a political titan as a Pennsylvania state senator for three decades, is on trial in a 139-count federal political corruption case. Fumo has been accused of using state employees and contractors such as Wallace as servants to cater to his personal and political needs, while leading a lavish lifestyle and systematically defrauding taxpayers of $3.5 million. The former state senator has pleaded not guilty to federal charges of fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and filing false tax returns.

"Just like everybody, I was working for Vince Fumo," Wallace told jurors. "He was the boss. We all worked for Fumo Inc."

Fumo, Wallace told the jury, was not happy that his former girlfriend didn’t get nailed. In an e-mail exchange, Wallace testified, Fumo suggested that Wallace retain an associate to either block Egrie’s car or slow her down so that the police could "nail her." "Reasonable costs here are no object," the senator e-mailed the investigator. Wallace, however, told the jury he didn’t take either suggestion.

Wallace told the jury about other assignments he had conducted on behalf of the senator, including tailing the senator’s second wife, to see who she was dating. "I think he (Fumo) received some information from his daughter" that the ex-wife was "going out with another guy," Wallace said. So Wallace drove to the ex-wife’s home. "The guy showed up. I ran his license plate," and then he reported back to the senator.

Wallace told the jury he also tailed employees of the city’s electrical workers union to see if they were swiping banners of a candidate for governor that Fumo was backing, Bob Casey. Sure enough, the investigator caught a couple of workers swiping a giant 40-foot Casey for Governor banner.

The investigator also explained how he also targeted an aide of John Dougherty, business manger of the International Brotherhood of Electrical Workers, Local 98, because Fumo suspected the aide was engaging in dirty tricks against him. The worker was suspected of sending out fake press releases on Fumo’s official stationary that gave the wrong date for an announcement kicking off Fumo’s reelection campaign. The fake press release also falsely stated that Fumo had called the press conference to answer questions about the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a nonprofit group that was earning the state senator plenty of heat from the local press.

Wallace explained how he hired an associate to covertly film the Dougherty aide inside City Hall, but that the aide never showed up. Asked by the government prosecutor to describe Fumo’s relationship with "Johnny Doc," Wallace replied it was "testy," adding, "They hated each other."

Wallace told the jury how when Dougherty held a political fundraiser at "Doc’s Union Pub" at Second and Mifflin Streets, Wallace hired an associate to film outside the bar. "Senator Fumo wanted to know who showed up."

Wallace was also asked to investigate whether former Mayor Rendell was using non-union labor to build a house at the Jersey Shore. Wallace told jurors he e-mailed Fumo on the "ER house," saying "none of these people are union." Asked by the prosecutor what became of the information, Wallace said he didn’t know, but that Fumo e-mailed him back, writing, "I will handle it."

When Dougherty backed a City Council candidate, Vernon Anastasio, against a Fumo ally, City Councilman Frank DiCicco, Wallace did a background investigation of Anastasio. He told the jury how he found out Anastasio’s wife was an executive director of Planned Parenthood. Wallace said he e-mailed that information over to the senator. The feeling was the Planned Parenthood role would not go over in Italian, heavily Catholic South Philadelphia, Wallace told the jury.

Another Dougherty-backed politician that Wallace said he was repeatedly asked to investigate was former City Councilman Rick Mariano, now in jail on a corruption rap. "He was another constant annoyance," Wallace told the jury. "He was constantly being accused of something."

Wallace got so many assignments from Fumo that he kept calling a Fumo aide for help. "I was constantly complaining about working more hours than I was being paid for," Wallace told the jury.

So Wallace began collecting checks from Citizens Alliance, including $1,000 for sweeping offices for electronic bugs. Fumo also asked Wallace to investigate what law firms were getting paid to do legal work for Independence Blue Cross. At the time, Fumo was a rainmaker for the Dilworth Paxton firm, and the feeling was "Dilworth was not getting a fair share of the legal work," Wallace told the jury.

Fumo even asked Wallace to check out two topless dancers. He wanted to find out "who they were," Wallace told the jury. When the prosecutor asked why the state senator was interested in the topless dancers, Wallace replied, "Not a clue."

"I got an education on topless dancers," Wallace told laughing jurors. He explained his mindset for most Fumo assignments: "I reported on them and then I forgot about them."

Until two FBI agents showed up at his door, and told him he was now a part of a federal investigation of Fumo. And that's how Wallace became a cooperating witness.