Categories: Courtroom Buzz
      Date: February 09, 2009
     Title: Vince Says He's a Shy Guy

Vince Fumo takes the stand at his political corruption trial at the federal court house

By Ralph Cipriano

Vince Fumo took the witness stand in his own defense today to talk about the tender side of the former Machiavelli of Harrisburg. 

In more than four hours on the witness stand, Fumo testified that he was basically a shy guy who was broken-hearted about an estranged daughter, as well as a girlfriend who dumped him, a girlfriend that Fumo subsequently ordered a private detective to follow.

"At the time, I was heartbroken, I was jealous, I was in love, and she had broken off with me," Fumo said of former girlfriend Dottie Egrie. "I'm not proud of it," he said about the assignment he gave detective Frank Wallace, then on the payroll of the state senate.

"It was probably something that I shouldn't have done," Fumo told the jury. "If anyone's been in that situation then you'll understand," Fumo said. He added in a hoarse voice that although what he did in a jealous funk might have been "understandable, it was not forgivable."

"I was moping around," Fumo recalled of his conversation with Wallace that resulted in the detective stalking Egrie and a new boyfriend outside a bar at the Jersey Shore. "He was a friend," Fumo said of Wallace. "I thought he was doing me a favor."

It was a candid, fascinating performance that easily eclipsed a lame warm-up act by Gov. Ed Rendell. In his much ballyhooed courtroom appearance, the governor praised Fumo as a hard-working legislator who "was always on."

"He was similar in many ways to myself. His job became his life," the governor said of Fumo.

In his 13-minute appearance on the witness stand, Rendell also praised Fumo's staff, saying of three top Fumo staffers, "they're incredible workers." The governor testified that would have loved to hire all three Fumo staffers, but he couldn't afford them.

Moments later, however, Rendell, in his trademark raspy voice, agreed with the prosecution that no matter how hard you work, it doesn't justify lawbreaking. Rendell then volunteered that one of the most able and hardworking governors he had ever known, former Connecticut Gov. John Rowland, was indicted and convicted for allowing contractors to rehab a summer home, without reporting the work as a gift.

So Rendell's brief comments were a wash, leaving courtroom observers to wonder why the defense had bothered to even call the governor as a witness in the first place. Rendell, usually charismatic in public appearances, seemed slick and over-scripted on the stand today. The usually-talkative governor also stiffed reporters gathered outside the courthouse, arriving in a limousine and ducking in a back door, so he wouldn't have to take any questions.

That left Fumo to carry the defense. After sitting through 16 weeks of testimony, most of it hostile, the former state senator was surprisingly dispassionate in his turn on the stand. Fumo, who has pleaded innocent to all the charges in a 139-count federal corruption indictment, talked openly about his lifelong problem with shyness, mistakes of the heart, and pain in his personal life.

Fumo, who has been sickly and pale looking throughout the trial, had a tan in court today. He also smiled a lot. The 65-year-old former state senator wore a gray suit, a cream-colored shirt and a pale-blue and pink striped tie. He appeared relaxed and chatted amicably during courtroom breaks with supporters, kissed his girlfriend, and even engaged in friendly banter with the lead FBI agent who has spent years pursuing him.

In contrast to the glacial and repetitive government case that went on for 14 weeks, defense lawyer Dennis Cogan moved briskly through many topics today. None were more painful that when the defense lawyer asked Fumo about Dottie Egrie's testimony that the former state senator was so shy that he was basically a "social retard."

"I am, in contrast to my media image, a very shy person," Fumo admitted. He added that he had been "in therapy for years trying to deal with it." Fumo brought up Gov. Rendell as an ideal politician. "He loves parades," Fumo said enviously of Rendell.

"I hate it. I feel awkward," Fumo said. "I am extremely shy almost to the point of being an introvert." He also said he had a fear of rejection, and not just with women.

Fumo testified that he also hated going to weddings. And when he did, Egrie would pick a seat between the senator and the crowd, and "sit there to keep people away from me," Fumo told the jury. 

So, Cogan emphasized, when Dottie Egrie testified for the prosecution that Fumo was so shy he was basically a social retard, she was telling the truth?

"Yes, she did," the senator ruefully admitted.

Another painful moment came when Cogan had Fumo read in court a private email from Sept. 11, 2000 that the former state senator had written to his estranged daughter Nicole.

"Hi pretty," Fumo began, before asking his daughter if she had seen a psychiatrist at Lankenau Hospital that he had recommended.

"I love you honey and I want you to be happy and peaceful," Fumo explained to his daughter. Nicole Fumo subsequently married Christian Marrone, a former Fumo staffer who was the prosecution's lead-off witness against Fumo.

While Marrone had testified that Fumo was an "evil" person who was an atheist, Fumo's email said he was "glad" that his daughter was "going to church."

"I hope and pray" Fumo also wrote, that she would "find God," and that God would heal her wounded soul.
 
"I was messed up as a kid and that spilled over into adulthood," Fumo wrote his daughter. "You are me," he wrote. Fumo in the email also pleaded with his daughter for a relationship where both father and daughter "would have to learn how to love and respect each other."

"I love you," the email ended. It was signed, "Dad."

Cogan asked what happened after the email was sent, and Fumo learned that his daughter Nicole was marrying Marrone.

"I was disinvited" to the wedding, Fumo said, taking off his reading glasses and appearing teary-eyed on the stand.

Fumo also told the jury that in contrast to what his son-in-law testified, the state senator had never asked Marrone to poison an annoying neighbor's dog.

Yes, the dog that belonged to the next-door neighbor barked constantly, Fumo admitted. But he said he did not order Marrone to put poison in a piece of meat and chuck it over the fence.

"Never," Fumo said, when asked whether he had ordered the hit on the neighbor's dog. When was the first time he heard Marrone make that accusation, Cogan asked. "When he sat in this chair," Fumo testified.

"The dog was a beagle, we live in rowhouses, and it barked and it barked and it barked," Fumo told the jury. "It could drive you crazy."

Fumo said after he filed a complaint about the neighbor's dog, an employee of the city's Department of Licenses and Inspections stopped by Fumo's house, and used a stop watch to time the dog's barking. When the dog went past 15 minutes, the L&I employee cited Fumo's next-door neighbor for disturbing the peace and hit him with a $100 fine, Fumo testified. The former state senator said after that, the neighbor brought his dog in whenever the dog started barking.

"And we would have done that for any constituent in the district," Fumo testified.

The former state senator also denied his estranged son-in-law's claim that for his first 18 months on Fumo's staff, that Marrone spent 80 percent of his time managing a rehab job at Fumo's 33-room castle on Green Street in the Spring Garden section of the city.

"Christian never was a full-time project manager," Fumo told the jury. "Christian, if anything, knew very little about construction."

Fumo traced his difficulties with Marrone to an office turf war between Marrone and Ruth Arnao, a former Fumo staffer who is Fumo's co-defendant. Fumo said he ended up taking Arnao's side.

"I think he was very upset that I backed Ruth over him," Fumo told the jury. 

Fumo also gave the jury a lesson on political power in Harrisburg.

"You accumulate power," Fumo told the jury. "The more you accumulate, the more you get done."

Fumo also testified about broad themes in his defense, such as "Politics are inextricably combined with government policy legislation." He rejected the government's theme that some of the actions of the former state senator and his staff were public business, some were political, and some were personal.

"Everything we do is political," Fumo told the jury.