By Ralph Cipriano

On the witness stand today, Howard J. Cain, a longtime political consultant for Vince Fumo, now testifying on behalf of the prosecution, recalled the day the press announced the feds were investigating Fumo.

Cain recalled the headline on the front page of the Philadelphia Inquirer’s Sunday edition of Jan. 25, 2004: "FBI Probes Fumo Deal." It came at a time when the state senator was running for re-election, Cain said, as well as facing a rare primary challenge.

"This was going to be a major problem," Cain told the jury today as the fourth week of testimony began in the case of the United States of America v. Vincent J. Fumo. "Once the investigation began, there was no telling where it would go, and what it would turn up," Cain told the jury.

Asked by U.S. Attorney John Pease to assess the impact the Inquirer story had on Fumo and his staff, Cain told the prosecutor, "It was like a ship that had taken a torpedo. All the bells were going off. Everybody was running around trying to figure out what to do."

In the days before the story hit, Cain talked about e-mails shooting around the office dealing with how to handle the press, specifically reporter Craig R. McCoy of the Inquirer, referred to in an e-mail to Cain from Ken Snyder, another Fumo operative, as "the jerk."

McCoy had been pestering Fumo staffers with requests to find out who was on the payroll of the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods. The nonprofit civic group founded by Fumo became a hot topic for the Inquirer, after McCoy found out that big corporations under Fumo’s legislative scrutiny in Harrisburg were donating millions to the nonprofit, at Fumo’s request.

Asked by the prosecutor about the impact of the press inquiry on Fumo, Cain replied, "I would say he felt under siege." When aides asked how to handle the press, the state senator responded in an e-mail, "No more information is to be given out to these guys. That is an order."

Fumo referred to reporters as "motherf---kers" in the e-mail, and he reiterated, "No more info is to be given out to these guys, they are out to kill us." Fumo also lectured his staff, writing in an e-mail that you don’t "hand your enemy the ammo to blow your head off."

Fumo is charged in a 139-count federal indictment with using state employees and contractors such as Cain as personal and political servants, allowing Fumo to allegedly lead a lavish lifestyle and enrich himself to the tune of $3.5 million. The former state senator who served for three decades in Harrisburg has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice and filing false tax returns.

The Sunday Inquirer story in 2004 detailed how FBI agents had begun investigating a deal between Fumo and Verizon Communications that would have diverted money to Citizens Alliance. The Inquirer had previously reported that PECO had donated $17 million to Citizens Alliance. Verizon officials, however, balked at Fumo’s request.

The Inquirer story reported that neither Fumo nor any of his staff had been contacted by law enforcement officials. But after the press disclosed the federal investigation, Fumo staffers began to circle the wagons.

A computer technician in Fumo’s office, Leonard Luchko, sent out a memo to all staffers, saying the office would be "stepping up security," and that all future e-mails to the state senator should be sent under "an encryption program." On the witness stand, Cain complained the program "was too complex to use," and that he resorted to talking to the state senator on his cell phone.

Under questioning from the prosecutor, Cain also disclosed how staffers were instructed to bring in their blackberries and laptop computers so that Luchko could "wipe ‘em." Asked by the prosecutor what "wipe ‘em" meant, Cain replied, "clean out every piece of electronic data on it."

Cain told the jury how he subsequently brought in his laptop and had it wiped clean on two different occasions. "I said to go ahead and wipe it," Cain told the jury about an e-mail he sent to Luchko in June 2004. "OK, thank you," Luchko responded in an e-mail displayed in court.

Luchko has already pleaded guilty for conspiring with Fumo to destroy evidence during the FBI probe. He has not testified yet.

In court today, Cain talked about his own guilty plea agreement with the government, which came after the discovery that he had not filed any tax returns between 1991 and 2006. Cain said as part of the agreement with the government, the U.S. attorney has agreed to send a letter detailing Cain’s cooperation in the Fumo case to the judge overseeing Cain’s tax evasion case.

"In my mind, it’s a complete crap shoot," Cain told jurors. "I don’t know what to expect." He said he is facing up to five years in jail after pleading guilty to charges that included conspiring with Fumo to bill the state for illegal campaign work done on behalf of Fumo that amounted to more than $200,000.

Cain said as part of his plea agreement, he has already started paying the government on his "total liability of over a million dollars."

Asked by prosecutor Pease "how is it possible you went 15 years without paying taxes?"Cain explained he got behind one year, "and then it became a cumulative problem. I didn’t know how I was going to pay for it."

Cain said he tried to go "underground" by always billing clients under the name of his company, rather than getting paid as an individual.

It was one of the two biggest mistakes he ever made in his life, he told jurors. He did not mention what the other mistake was, but it may have had something to do with the gracefully-graying former legislator watching him from the defense table.