Fumo's son-in-law tells of working on mansion
The estranged son-in-law of State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo continued to provide potentially damaging testimony against the embattled legislator yesterday, saying that while working as a legislative aide for Fumo, he switched seamlessly between personal and political tasks.
The estranged son-in-law of State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo continued to provide potentially damaging testimony against the embattled legislator yesterday, saying that while working as a legislative aide for Fumo, he switched seamlessly between personal and political tasks.
"They were never differentiated," Christian Marrone told jurors, referring to his job functions. "They were all just your duties."
Marrone also disclosed that he had turned over to federal prosecutors a cache of e-mails he had kept of his exchanges with Fumo during the five years he was on Fumo's legislative payroll.
The e-mails - often sent on weekdays during regular business hours - document that Marrone spent much of his time managing the renovation of Fumo's 33-room mansion in Spring Garden.
They show Fumo peppering Marrone with demands to deal with the plumbers, electricians, tile installers, painters, ironworkers, locksmiths and other contractors involved in the multimillion-dollar project.
Marrone began dating Fumo's daughter Nicole in 1999, two years after he joined Fumo's staff right out of college. He and his wife are now bitterly at odds with the senator, a split that first yawned in 2003, when there was a falling-out over who would be invited to their wedding.
As she had last week, Nicole Marrone sat with her husband's parents and brothers yesterday in court while he testified. She and her father have not talked in several years and they kept to their separate ways yesterday.
Marrone said he had kept the e-mails "for our own protection," thinking that one day Fumo "would try to say things that were not true."
In a key charge in the complex indictment against Fumo, a grand jury alleged that the senator illegally had his legislative staff handle personal tasks for him and improperly work on political campaigns.
Under questioning from Assistant U.S. Attorney John J. Pease, Marrone went over scores of e-mails about the house project, dealing with issues ranging from cable TV service to a cranky heating system.
In an Aug. 19, 2001, e-mail projected on computer monitors for the jury, Fumo asked Marrone to see that one of the senator's taxpayer-paid drivers learned how to deal with the house's ornate lights.
He wanted the chauffeur to do that, Fumo wrote, "so I don't have to pay [a private contractor] every time a bulb goes out."
Marrone also testified that he would run into another legislative aide, Lisa Costello, when he went to the mansion to check on contractors.
"Lisa was essentially the housekeeper," Marrone said. "She would clean and do laundry, things like that."
Back at the legislative office on Tasker Street in South Philadelphia, Marrone said, he and other aides would routinely engage in partisan politics: raising campaign money, planning strategy, and drafting campaign literature.
Prosecutors are expected to call Marrone back to the stand tomorrow; today is an off day for the trial.
Once he completes his direct testimony, Marrone is expected to face an aggressive cross-examination from Fumo's lawyer, Dennis J. Cogan.
