Categories: Courtroom Buzz
      Date: February 12, 2009
     Title: Another Day in the Public Stockade for Vince

Live from the Vince Fumo political corruption trial: Day Two of Vince's cross

By Ralph Cipriano

Vince Fumo was hauled off to the public stockade today for a full day of lashing from a federal prosecutor.

Fumo was interrogated by Assistant U.S. Attorney John Pease for offenses that included accepting tens of thousands of dollars worth of power tools as gifts. Fumo was also questioned about the propriety of ordering state senate staffers to buy items such as Hazelnut Coffee, Earl Gray Tea, and Sebastian Hair Spray, and having the taxpayers pay for FedEx shipments down to Fumo’s vacation home in Florida.

The highlight of the day came when Pease questioned Fumo about another dubious use of state workers, namely having them purchase parts for Bose stereo equipment, to benefit Fumo's former wife. In retrospect, the prosecutor asked, do you feel that this was an appropriate use of state workers? 

"Look, in retrospect," Fumo snapped, "I wish I had never got elected to the senate."

It was that kind of a day for the defendant, facing a 139-count federal indictment. During today’s cross-examination, Fumo was even browbeaten by Pease for something that isn’t normally considered a federal crime -- lying to a reporter. But this wasn’t just any reporter. No, Fumo was accused of lying to Marty Moss-Coane, the popular host of WHYY’s Radio Times.

Prosecutor Pease rolled the tape of an interview Fumo did on Jan. 29, 2004 with Moss-Coane. In the interview, Fumo was attempting to do damage control after the Philadelphia Inquirer revealed that Fumo was the subject of an FBI probe for his dealings with Verizon. After he got PECO to donate $17 million to the Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, Fumo then asked Verizon for $50 million, but they said no.

During the interview, Moss-Coane asked Fumo if he received any compensation from Citizens Alliance.

"I don’t get any money from it; I don’t get any benefits from it," Fumo told Moss-Coane. He quickly added that instead of collecting money from Citizens, he actually paid the nonprofit to pick up his trash from time to time.

Fumo’s problem was that during direct testimony this week, he admitted for the first time that he had accepted $43,000 in power tools and $20,000 in other goods from Citizens Alliance over a six-year period from 1998 to 2003, for a total of $63,000.

"You did not tell the truth" to a reporter who, as a representative of the public, was trying to find out the real story, Pease accused Fumo.

Fumo explained that when he gave that answer to Moss-Coane, he was thinking of "the kind of benefits you get when you get a salary," not the perks and gifts that he has admitted receiving from Citizens Alliance. Let's face it, Fumo said, if he wanted a salary from Citizens Alliance, he could have easily gotten one. The implication was that Vince's cronies over at Citizens would have had the rubber stamp ready.

No, you were trying to keep a secret, weren’t you, Pease persisted. And when you're keeping a secret from a reporter, Pease argued, weren't you also trying to deceive the public? In a courtroom packed with reporters, you could almost hear vital signs racing.

"It was something that I didn’t want to brag about," Fumo testified. He added that the people that needed to know about his gifts from the Citizens Alliance already knew about them, namely the nonprofit's own officials.

"You were being deceitful, weren’t you?" Pease persisted.

"No, I was being careful," Fumo replied.

But apparently not careful enough. Pease then asked Fumo something that may get him into further trouble, namely why he didn’t report that $63,000 in gifts from the Citizens Alliance on state financial disclosure forms for public officials, as well as on his tax returns to the IRS.

"I didn’t because I didn’t have to," Fumo replied. The former state senator argued that the law did not require him to disclose "gifts from a nonprofit that I was associated with."

The IRS may have a different interpretation.

On Wednesday, the first day of Fumo’s cross-examination, Pease had berated Fumo for two hours for offenses that included not being familiar with a digest of recent rulings from the state Ethics Commission. The defense promptly filed in a motion for a mistrial, because in the 139-count federal indictment, Fumo was never charged with any violations of the state ethics law

Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter told lawyers on both sides that he would grant the defense’s request to instruct the jury that despite Pease’s ethics lecture, Vince Fumo is not charged with any violations of the state ethics law. Buckwalter told the lawyers that he would indeed make that requested jury instruction when testimony is complete, and the judge gives his charge.

Judge Buckhalter also voiced concern over a newspaper article, which he did not identify, that indicated lawyers in the case were really going at each other. The judge didn’t seem to like that kind of publicity. He reminded lawyers in the case "to conduct themselves in the proper fashion, and not get overly emotional."

In response, Pease took his act down a few notches, and instead, methodically scored points with low-key questions intended to show that Fumo had complete authority over his employees whenever he "asked" them to do personal favors, as well as political campaign work.

Pease went through authoritative emails from the state senator to staffers, often punctuated by profanity and numerous exclamation points, to prove the government's point that Fumo was in complete control. "I want an immediate answer!!!!," read one email from Fumo after the senator had a problem with a cell phone.

"Can’t someone fix this f—king thing," Fumo fumed after a TV in his family room malfunctioned.

"This is the way you communicate when you want something done?" Pease asked.

While Fumo said he only made "requests" of staffers, Peace characterized them as "demands."

"We’re playing semantics here," Fumo said.

Pease tried to get Fumo to admit that he was always ordering political consultant Howard Cain to conduct political campaigns on behalf of Fumo’s favored Democrats.

Cain had a mind of his own, Fumo testified. "Believe me, Howard was a campaign animal."

Pease turned to Fumo’s use of a state senate computer consultant to install an X-box at Fumo’s home. "Is that an appropriate use of senate staff?"

"At the time, I didn’t think it was a big deal," Fumo said.

How about having senate staffers send Fumo his favorite brand of hazelnut coffee, as well as Earl Grey Tea, by FedEx down to Florida, when Vince was on vacation?

Fumo replied that the FedEx also included some pen sets with the official state senate seal that he was planning to give away as gifts.

"I could have gotten it in Florida," Fumo admitted about the tea; the coffee, however, was compatible with his coffee machine, and hard to find in Florida.

Pease replied that records showed the state has paid for some $10,000 in shipments over four years to Fumo’s vacation home in Florida, including shipments of Sebastian Hairspray.

And so the puzzling spectacle of the Fumo trial rumbled into the 17th week of its seemingly endless run at the federal courthouse at 6th and Market. The big question remains: what will the jury make of the fact that the biggest things Fumo has been accused of in this courtroom, namely fleecing $17 million out of PECO and hitting Verizon up for $50 million, resulted in no federal charges?

And that after 17 full weeks of a prosecutorial crusade that has taken years and is no doubt costing taxpayers millions, that federal prosecutors are still denouncing the defendant in the same tones of high moral outrage, only the list of offenses has dwindled down to FedExing bags of coffee and tea, as well as lying to a reporter.

Yes it's true, as even Vince admitted this week, choosing his words ever so carefully, that it was "probably" wrong for him to allow one of his loyal staffers to do political campaign work at her desk during office hours. But what will the jury make of the fact that another defense witness, former Montgomery County District Attorney Bruce Castor, admitted on the witness stand a few weeks ago that he was "probably" guilty of the same offense?

Yes, Castor admitted to the jury, he probably had a staffer do campaign stuff in the office, during regular office hours, yet he walked out of court a free man. Perhaps defense lawyer Dennis Cogan will remind the jury about Castor in his closing.

Yet after 17 weeks, the prosecutors, like evangelical preachers, are still banging away at the evil Vince's now-familiar laundry list of public transgressions, hoping weary congregants won't doze off in the pews. By now, the jury has to wonder what's really going on, and why they weren't told the missing piece of the puzzle.

That the feds have been after Vince with a vengeance since he beat a prior 1980 political corruption conviction. It's something that the prosecutors are dying to tell the jury, but the judge keeps saying no.

One other question hangs over Courtroom 17A: do jurors, who seem to notice every new person that enters the room, also wonder about the sudden invasion of the press, and why the media is so hot on this story? Even reporters themselves were chuckling over the spectacle of two depleted newspapers on North Broad Street assigning ten reporters and columnists in the same day to the Fumo trial.

Meanwhile, prosecutor Pease, perhaps sensing that after 17 weeks, a tired act may be running out of steam, switched over to more familiar territory -- Fumo's personal transgressions that he has already copped to.

Pease asked Fumo about sending detective Frank Wallace to spy on a former girlfriend.

"I’ve already said that I’m sad and remorseful for this, and have apologized to her and everyone," Fumo replied.

Pease then took an hour to review Fumo’s relations with the Senate Committee on Management and Operations, known as COMO, which oversees job classifications for state workers. Pease wanted to know why Fumo’s staff kept coming up with deceptive job descriptions for a couple of Fumo’s drivers.

Was Fumo trying to hide the fact that he had up to three drivers?

Everybody knew, Vince replied.

Much of the questioning was technical, but Pease’s basic question was why couldn't Fumo just be straight-forward and propose to COMO a new job classification as a driver? Was Fumo afraid that his fellow senators wouldn’t approve of a new job classification that would pay a driver $60,000?

Fumo insisted that he would have had the votes to get that new job classification approved.

"Had I known I would be up here, I certainly would have done it," a weary Fumo responded.