Fumo's defense releases more e-mails

Call it the many moods of Vince Fumo.

In an e-mail war with federal prosecutors, the defense lawyers for former State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo released their own selection Friday of Fumo's electronic messages from prison.

The defense team said the messages show him to be a different and far more attractive man, or least a more sympathetic one, than the vengeful figure sketched out by prosecutors in their Fumo e-mail dump.

In the new round of e-mails, Fumo worries about his weight and his mortality. He is aching to start a new life with his fiancee. He knows he would be a flop as a lobbyist. He wants to help people. He wants forgiveness.

In both releases, he feels so wronged.

"What in the name of God did I do to deserve this. Who did I hurt! . . ." Fumo wrote in an e-mail made public Friday. "Why is there NO justice for me? Why is there no end to the harassment and persecution?"

In a last-minute filing before Fumo's resentencing hearing Wednesday, his defense lawyers railed against what they called prosecutors' "Orwellian" move to scoop up and use Fumo's prison e-mails.

They said the U.S. Attorney's Office had culled a few e-mails from thousands sent from prison since April to falsely portray Fumo as a "conniving megalomaniac anxious to return to a life of crime and luxury."

In fact, the lawyers asserted, the e-mails in full reveal the former state senator to be a "tortured soul" lashing out - albeit in ways that at times were "irrational, objectionable, and wrong."

The filing, plus the defense's submission of a handful of letters supportive of Fumo, should be the final salvo before his resentencing.

Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert A. Zauzmer, who has handled the Fumo case with fellow prosecutor John J. Pease, declined to comment Friday. He said they would address the filing Wednesday at the hearing before U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter.

In August, an appeals court found that Buckwalter made numerous legal mistakes in giving Fumo a 55-month term two years ago. Without specifying what punishment was best, the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit ordered Buckwalter to sentence Fumo anew.

Fumo, now 68, was convicted by a federal jury of 137 counts of fraud, conspiracy, tax offenses, and obstruction of justice.

The jury found him guilty of defrauding the Senate, turning his staff into personal servants or partisan foot soldiers, wildly overpaying them as an inducement.

It also said that he extracted personal favors and goods from a South Philadelphia civic-improvement organization then called Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods.

It found that he had taken several years of free cruises on luxury yachts owned or leased by the Independence Seaport Museum, of which he was a board member.

Those trips alone cost the museum $115,000. In all, Fumo's crimes cost taxpayers, the nonprofit, and the maritime museum $4 million.

He was also found guilty of having his staff delete thousands of Senate and nonprofit e-mails in a cover-up that prosecutors said may well have wiped out evidence of other crimes.

In the e-mails filed by the defense, Fumo complains bitterly against the government.

"What do they want from me, my very life? My blood? A pound of my flesh? To them this is a draconian game! A joke! Sport! To me it is real life and suffering for me and my entire family."

He added:

"Who did I kill? Who did I rape? Who did I cause irreversible harm to? Who are my real 'victims'? On a scale of the good I did versus the evil I stand convicted of, is not the scale at least balanced, if not tilted in my overwhelming favor? Am I to suffer endlessly for my 'first nonviolent' offense against society?"

Fumo often wrote of the hardship of prison life.

"I miss decent food. I miss movies. I miss my kids. . . . I miss cooking and I miss fixing things. I miss helping people too. And for what????? What in the name of God did I do to deserve this?" he wrote in one message.

In an apparent message to his fiancee, Carolyn Zinni, Fumo apologizes for venting.

"I love you deeply and miss you so very much. I just want us to get on with our lives," he wrote. "I want to leave all this behind us and just sail away into the sunset!"

In the filing, Fumo's lawyers - Dennis Cogan, Peter Goldberger, and Samuel Buffone - also submitted 14 letters from Fumo family members and others in his support.

Among the writers was Stephen A. Cozen, chairman of the Cozen O'Connor law firm in Philadelphia. Fumo is a longtime friend of Cozen, and, according to trial testimony, sought to direct legal work to the Cozen firm.

Cozen said he had visited Fumo at the federal prison camp in Ashland, Ky., and kept in close touch with him. He said he remained "very concerned about his precarious physical and mental health and the rather devastating effects of his public humiliation - his bravado notwithstanding."

Peter Nero, conductor of the Philly Pops and another longtime Fumo friend, echoed that.

"His spirit has been mostly crushed," Nero wrote of Fumo, adding. "His loud and booming voice, which gave his friends so much delight, now has been muffled, so that he frequently talks barely above a whisper."

Zinni also wrote in support, saying she would never leave Fumo. Vincent E. Fumo, one of Fumo's three grown children, wrote to support his father.

More backing came from a man who served time with Fumo inside the Kentucky prison, who wrote to say Fumo had helped another inmate learn how to read.

The submission was far thinner than the thick set of more than 250 letters submitted by the defense before the 2009 sentencing. Unlike Friday's submission, that 2009 packet included many from prominent political figures.

For their part, prosecutors Pease and Zauzmer had also submitted letters to the judge. Late last month, they forwarded Buckwalter 50 letters from citizens, all critical of the 55-month sentence.