Categories: Courtroom Buzz
      Date: November 17, 2008
     Title: Fumo's Former "Princess" Testifies Against Him

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

By Ralph Cipriano

She used to be a blonde when she was dating "the senator," now she’s a brunette. But Dottie Egrie-Wilcox still has the figure of a model, especially the long, slender legs.

The woman Vince Fumo once described in an e-mail as "my princess" appeared in court today to testify on behalf of the prosecution. Egrie-Wilcox, according to previous testimony, was also the woman that Fumo had paid a private investigator to follow down the shore.

In court testimony today, Egrie-Wilcox testified that Fumo gave her a state Senate laptop computer and had the technicians in his district office service it for free, just so the senator could spy on Dottie’s e-mails.

In e-mails between Fumo staffers that were entered into evidence today, one aide told another that the senator wanted to make sure that Dottie’s computer broke down every month so he could continue to spy on her.

Asked by a government prosecutor if she had any idea what was going on, Egrie-Wilcox replied simply, "No."

She also testified that when the news broke about a federal investigation of the senator, Fumo asked her to return the state laptop, because he said it didn’t belong to him. And then the wily senator offered to replace the state laptop with another laptop that he bought for her.

About three years ago, Egrie-Wilcox testified, after she broke up with Fumo for good, a boyfriend who would become her current husband discovered a spying device had been installed on the laptop that Fumo had given her.

So Fumo clearly was obsessed with Dottie Egrie-Wilcox, whom he had a stormy, off-and-on relationship between 1999 and 2004. She also was the first person in the month-long parade of prosecution witnesses who could testify that she was on a first-name basis with Vince.

When Fumo’s former employees, including his son-in-law, previously testified in court on behalf of the government, the witnesses usually referred to Fumo as "the senator." But to Dottie Egrie-Wilcox, he was simply Vince. The guy who took her on excursions to Martha’s Vineyard and the Devon Horse Show, as well as private trips aboard his $500,000 yacht.

For his part, Fumo seemed to be taken down a few notches in court today by the appearance of his former girlfriend. He did not glare at her from the witness table; for the most part, he didn’t even look at her while she testified.

Instead, Fumo usually looked down at the table or scanned a legal pad, with a couple of fingers pressed against his face. To jurors, he may have looked penitent. Or maybe he was simply embarrassed that the government had caught him spying on his former girlfriend, and then told her about it. But for whatever reason, the man that most witnesses described as the Machiavelli of Harrisburg looked more human in the courtroom today than on any previous day.

The former state senator is charged in a 139-count federal indictment with using state contractors and employees as personal servants, allowing Fumo to lead a lavish lifestyle and bilk the taxpayers out of $3.5 million in goods and services. Fumo, who served for 30 years in Harrisburg, has pleaded not guilty to charges of fraud, conspiracy to obstruct justice and filing false tax returns.

In court today, Egrie-Wilcox revealed to jurors that Fumo’s nickname in Harrisburg was "Senator R2D2, because he loves computers, he loves technology. If something new came out, he had to have it."

She also described a typical summer day with Fumo: "He’d go to the docks. He’d mess around with the boat. Then he’d play around in his garage. Then we’d go out to dinner."

Dinner, if the senator was in Philadelphia, was usually at LaVeranda, a gourmet Italian restaurant on Delaware Avenue. The senator and his girlfriend usually dined with Fumo’s co-defendant Ruth Arnao and her husband, Egrie-Wilcox testified, but sometimes celebrities tagged along, such as Peter Nero, conductor of the Philly Pops, and his girlfriend.

The senator’s secretary always called ahead to LaVeranda to schedule reservations, Egrie-Wilcox testified. And when it came time to pay the bill, Fumo would usually say, "Let’s use OPM tonight," Fumo shorthand for "Other People’s Money."

Egrie-Wilcox also testified in court about a trip she took six years ago with Vince through a drive-in bank. According to Egrie-Wilcox’s testimony, the senator watched in stunned silence as she made a deposit.

"I don’t even do my own banking," she recalled the senator telling her. "I don’t even know how to fill out a deposit slip."

In previous testimony, an aide to Fumo told jurors how she had paid all of Fumo’s bills for him, including his mortgage, and also collected the rents on his private rental properties.

In court testimony today, Egrie-Wilcox testified how Fumo loved the trappings of being a senator. "He loved the fact that he was above everybody else," she said. She also testified that the senator was always worried that "he doesn’t have enough money," even though "he spent it before he gets it."

She also told jurors about Fumo's purchase of a 100-acre farm outside Harrisburg. The senator always wanted to own a large enough tract of land so that he could stand in the middle of the property, look out in every direction and see that "every piece of land" belonged to him, his former girlfriend testified.

She told jurors that at the beginning of their relationship, back in 1999, "We couldn’t see each other too much because he was still living in the same house as his wife." She told jurors how Fumo, a gun collector, bought her a revolver, as well as a massage table and a GPS system for her Toyota 4Runner.

But the senator and his girlfriend had frequent break-ups. Once, after they split, Fumo wrote Egrie-Wilcox an e-mail saying he had stored all her clothes in one closet, so he wouldn’t have to walk into every room and be reminded "of the hurt you inflicted on me." After another Egrie-Wilcox split, Fumo hired a private detective to follow her down the shore.

Asked by the prosecutor why she kept coming back for more, Egrie-Wilcox testified it was because "I loved him."