Categories: Courtroom Buzz
      Date: November 13, 2008
     Title: Former Fumo Aide Tells Jury She Paid the Boss's Mortgage, as well as the Exterminator

The Daily Fumo Fix from the political corruption trial of the former state senator

By Ralph Cipriano

Vince Fumo didn’t have to personally write out that $5,000 mortgage check every month for his castle on Green Street. Fumo also didn’t have to worry about collecting rents on five different rental properties that he owned. And he didn’t have to bother writing out checks every month to pay his housekeeper, exterminator or the landscaper.

No, since he was Vince Fumo, he had a Senate aide do all that personal bookkeeping work for him. Jamie Spagna, a diminutive blonde, testified in federal court today how she managed various bank accounts for Fumo properties that included his Green Street castle, a farm outside Harrisburg, a Jersey shore home, and a winter home in Florida.

Spagna told the jury how she was hired by Fumo in 1996 for $10 an hour at age 17, while still working in college. Over the years, Spagna’s duties were expanded to also serve as treasurer for the Fumo’s reelection campaign, as well as treasurer for the re-election campaign of a close Fumo ally, Philadelphia City Councilman Frank DiCicco.

Spagna testified how she managed these affairs while working for Fumo at his district office at 12th
^{and Tasker, and getting paid as a legislative aide to the state Senate before she left the position in February of this year.}

Fumo is accused in a 139-count federal indictment of using state contractors and employees such as Spagna as servants, allowing the former state senator to lead a lavish lifestyle and allegedly bilk the taxpayers out of $3.5 million. Fumo, a Democrat who served in Harrisburg for three decades, has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, obstruction of justice and filing false tax returns.

U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer today showed Spagna state senate documents that listed Spagna’s job classification and supposed duties.

"Did you know you were hired as a legislative aide?" Zauzmer asked.

"No," she said.

"Have you ever seen this form before?" Zauzmer asked.

"No."

"Is that your signature?" Zauzmer asked.

"No."

Zauzmer then went through Spagna’s alleged job descriptions, as listed on state senate documents from Spagna’s personnel file. One document reported that Spagna received a raise because she "writes reports well." Zauzmer asked Spagna if she ever wrote any reports.

"No," she said.

As Spagna’s salary increased to $46,000 in 20006, and her job title was upgraded to legislative support staff, her responsibilities also increased, according to the state documents in her personnel file.

Spagna was listed as having conducted research studies, as well as written position papers, press releases and speeches for the former state senator. In reality, when Zauzmer asked Spagna about those job specifics, Spagna went item-by-item and said she had never done any of the duties stated on the documents.

What she did do was continue to work in the basement of the state senator’s district office, known to Fumo staffers as "the bunker," paying the senator’s mortgage, collecting his monthly rents, and paying his household contractors and servants, as well as his gas and cell phone bills. And, at election time, she testified she also worked round the clock for the senator, doing chores such as stuffing envelopes with campaign fliers.

Responding to questions from the prosecutor, Spagna echoed a recurring prosecution theme, that there were no distinctions in Fumo’s office between performing private and public functions for the senator. Spagna also stated, in response to questions from the prosecutor, that neither she nor anyone else in the office ever questioned the propriety of performing personal functions for the state senator while being paid as a state Senate employee.

Spagna, who now works for the Philadelphia school district in community relations, was asked by the prosecutor if she could still work on political campaigns for the state senator in her free time. Apparently, her new employer has stricter regulations.

"I’m not allowed, it’s political," she said.

Prosecutor Zauzmer also showed Spagna several documents that listed her as secretary and treasurer of four different corporate subsidiaries of the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, a non-profit founded by Fumo.

Spagna told the prosecutor she had never seen the documents and had no idea how she ended up as an officer of any of the corporations.

Prosecutor Zauzmer then went through a long list of purchases made by Citizens Alliance, many of which involving checks that Spagna had written out.

Those purchases included a $42 traffic ticket run up by a Fumo aide in Ventnor, as well as a $34,000 Cadillac Escalade and a $27,000 bulldozer.

Each time, Spagna told the prosecutor, she may have signed the checks but she had no idea why Citizens Alliance made these expenditures. Spagna testified that she just did what she was told, often at the direction of Ruth Arnao, Fumo’s co-defendant, and the former executive director of Citizens Alliance.

During breaks, members of Fumo’s defense team, as well as the senator himself, kidded his former aide, testifying under a grant of immunity.

"You’re shrinking," defense lawyer Ed Jacobs cracked to the tiny Spagna. Fumo also teased Spagna, telling her to be careful about hanging out with an FBI agent sitting next to her who, Fumo warned, had voted for John McCain in last week’s presidential election.

Whether the smiles will hold up on cross-examination is expected to be determined tomorrow, when the trial resumes at 10 a.m.