Lawyers ask acquittal or new trial for Fumo
Vince Fumo's lawyers are asking a federal judge to acquit the disgraced former state senator or give him a new trial.
Vince Fumo's lawyers are asking a federal judge to acquit the disgraced former state senator or give him a new trial.
Fumo was convicted by a federal jury on March 16 of 137 counts of conspiracy, fraud, obstruction of justice and related tax offenses.
Jurors found that Fumo had used Senate aides to do personal and political tasks for him on the taxpayers' dime. They also found that Fumo had tapped a nonprofit organization he founded, Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, for personal and political use and that he had taken free cruises on yachts owned by the Independence Seaport Museum.
But in a court filing yesterday, Fumo attorney Peter Goldberger said evidence presented during the five-month trial was "insufficient for any reasonable jury" to convict Fumo or co-defendant Ruth Arnao. (She was convicted on 45 similar counts.)
For example, the filing said that numerous mail- and wire-fraud counts against Fumo should be tossed out because packages or e-mails were not shown to have been sent across state lines.
The defense's brief also said that the evidence did not show beyond a reasonable doubt that Fumo had schemed to defraud Citizens Alliance or conceal facts from it.
The filing said Fumo had not concealed anything from Citizens Alliance, or in particular, from Arnao, who as executive director knew about all the expenditures and had the authority to approve them. (At trial the feds portrayed Arnao as little more than a lackey who did Fumo's bidding.)
As for the seaport museum, the court filing said there was no fraud because then-museum president John Carter had approved Fumo's free cruises.
Fumo's attorneys also said U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter erred when he charged the jury on several matters and "abused" his discretion when he refused to remove juror Eric Wuest after Wuest was found to have posted comments about the case on Facebook and Twitter.
Buckwalter questioned Wuest for about 30 minutes in his chambers and found he had not done anything to warrant his dismissal as a juror. *
