By Ralph Cipriano

Vince Fumo sat silently in court today and watched as his turncoat son-in-law vented about their broken relationship.

Christian Marrone, appearing as a prosecution witness against Fumo in a political corruption trial, sounded conflicted as he told a federal jury about a thank-you note he sent the senator after Marrone resigned his position in 2002 after five years as a legislative aide to Fumo.

"I thanked him for putting me on his staff," Marrone testified. "I thanked him for introducing me to his daughter . . . . He gave me a hug after he received that."

Marrone described Fumo to jurors as a mentor and a "great teacher" who taught a kid fresh out of college how the game of politics is played. "He treated me like a son," Marrone said in grand jury testimony read in court.

But Marrone also told jurors about his decision not to invite Fumo to Marrone’s 2003 wedding to Fumo’s daughter, Nicole. Marrone also talked about his decision to stop speaking to Fumo. The last time Marrone talked to Fumo was back in 2005, he told jurors, when his daughter, Charlotte, was born.

Marrone described how Fumo called the hospital shortly after the birth to congratulate the parents of his new granddaughter. Marrone told jurors that he just said hello and when he realized who was on the phone, he handed it to his wife, who spoke to her father for "about 15 seconds."

"My wife and I, along with our family, had made the determination that the best way to move forward in life was without Vince," Marrone explained to jurors. He complained that Fumo had tried to control the relationship between Marrone and Fumo’s daughter. Marrone also charged that Fumo did not treat his daughter with respect.

Under prodding from the prosecutor, Marrone spoke about being "a victim of Vince."

"I find myself sitting here," he told jurors, looking around from his perch on the witness stand. "This has gone on for four years," he said of the federal investigation of Fumo. "My name has been dragged through the mud."

Marrone then accused his brother-in-law, Vince Fumo Jr., of spreading "vicious lies" about him, before returning to the subject of his wedding. "We tried to plan a wedding including him," Marrone said of the senator. But Marrone said he and Nicole finally decided that they "couldn’t deal with him (Fumo) anymore."

Marrone's wife watched from a courtroom bench as her husband, a former Penn State football player, testified. She sat with her mother and her equally large brother-in-law, a Catholic priest, who draped a protective arm around her.

Fumo has been charged in a 139-count federal indictment with using state employees such as Marrone as servants to cater to his personal and political needs, allowing the state senator to lead a lavish lifestyle, as well as to systematically defraud taxpayers of $3.5 million. The former state senator, a political titan in Pennsylvania for three decades, has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice, and filing false tax returns.

In court today, Marrone traced his falling-out with Fumo to 2000, after he read several disturbing newspaper articles in the Philadelphia City Paper about the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a nonprofit group founded by Fumo in 1991. The articles detailed how the civic group had missed state filing deadlines for grants it had received, Marrone said.

Marrone told jurors how he wrote the state senator an email suggesting that "a full time general manager" and a "more professional management team" might correct the situation, and stop the negative publicity. The senator, however, responded with an email that said he didn’t want to bring somebody "in our tent" who, because all of the political activities that the alliance was involved in, could leave the senator "subject to his blackmail."

The senator also wrote to Marrone that "the articles were written because we have many enemies who are jealous and love to rat on me."

Fumo’s response was to suggest that Marrone run the articles by Fumo’s lawyer at the time, Richard A. Sprague, to see if he could sue the City Paper for libel and invasion of privacy.

"It really hurt his credibility with me," Marrone said of the email exchange with Fumo.

Marrone previously also described the falling out to a grand jury, testifying: "Up until that point, really I idolized Vince. He really pushed me to go to law school. He treated me like a son."

When Dennis Cogan, Fumo’s defense lawyer, got a chance to cross-examine Marrone, he asked if the email he sent about Citizens Alliance was an attempt to trap the state senator.

"You weren’t setting him up in any way, were you?" Cogan asked.

"No," Marrone said. "I cared very much about the senator. He was my mentor."

Cogan suggested Marrone was more concerned about his own future, as he read to the jury some of Marrone’s grand jury testimony: "I was very ambitious and wanted to be involved in everything the senator was involved in."

"Didn’t you want to get close to the senator?" Cogan asked.

Marrone got indignant. "I don’t want to get close to anybody but my wife," he told Cogan. Marrone also complained that Cogan was standing over him when he showed him the grand jury testimony, as well as shouting at him.

The prosecutor objected to Cogan’s hovering over the witness, and the judge advised the defense lawyer to back off.

"I started to have doubts about Senator Fumo and his veracity," Marrone told Cogan.

Cogan's cross-examination of Marrone resumes tomorrow morning.