Fumo gets his day (or months) in court

A powerful Philadelphia politician on trial, defending himself against corruption charges. A turncoat son-in-law, an ex-girlfriend, and a once-loyal consultant, all testifying for the prosecution. A slew of political insiders - maybe even Gov. Rendell - summoned to the witness stand.

These are just some of the likely scenarios when the curtain goes up in one of the most significant corruption trials in recent Philadelphia history: U.S. v. Vincent J. Fumo.

A year and a half after his indictment, Fumo, a Democratic state senator since 1978, will finally get his day in court, starting tomorrow when jury selection is scheduled to begin at the U.S. Courthouse in Center City.

A 139-count indictment charges Fumo with conspiring to defraud the Senate, a South Philadelphia nonprofit, and the Independence Seaport Museum; obstruction of justice; and tax violations.

The fraudulent activity totaled $3.5 million, Assistant U.S. Attorneys John J. Pease and Robert A. Zauzmer said.

Fumo said he was apprehensive - but pledged to fight the charges. "How could you not fight for your life?" he told The Inquirer late last month.

"That's not to say I don't get depressed some days, to say I don't get angry, don't get aggravated. 'My God what are we going through here?' But you play the hand you've been dealt. And you play it as best you can," Fumo said.

The trial is already the talk of the legal, business and political communities, with lots of debate about possible defenses and outcomes, even whether Fumo will seek a last-minute plea or go forward with a trial.

"It is the most anticipated event of its kind that I can remember," said Zack Stalberg, president of the Committee of Seventy, a government watchdog group in Philadelphia. "Vince has been such a large figure for so long a period of time that I think the whole region will be watching this one closely."

The outcome could determine whether Fumo, who has been one of the most influential political figures in the state for decades, spends the rest of his life in prison.

If Fumo, 65, is convicted of all charges, federal prosecutors are expected to seek a prison sentence of at least 10 years. Even an eleventh-hour plea would not likely spare him a prison term of some years.

His lead attorney, Dennis J. Cogan, declined to comment last week on the impending trial or whether Fumo would take the stand.

U.S. District Judge William H. Yohn Jr., a former state legislator, will preside over the trial, which is expected to last about three months.

A jury pool of 200 has been summoned from the counties in eastern Pennsylvania's federal district: Philadelphia, Bucks, Montgomery, Delaware, Chester, Lancaster, Lehigh, Northampton and Berks. Selection is likely to take most of the week.

The 267-page indictment portrays Fumo as a greedy and arrogant legislator who, though personally wealthy, liked to use "other people's money" - or OPM, as he allegedly referred to it - for everything from vacuum cleaners to farm equipment.

Fumo allegedly had Senate employees tend his farm, clean his house, run personal errands, and do political work, and gave Senate equipment, including laptops, to his valet, girlfriends and relatives. He also is accused of using Senate money to hire an investigator who spied on his ex-wife and ex-girlfriends.

The indictment further accused Fumo of using a charity he helped fund, Citizens' Alliance for Better Neighborhoods, as his personal piggybank for vehicles, tools, $100-a-gallon paint, even turkey-fryer equipment.

In addition, he is accused of exploiting his position on the board of the Independence Seaport Museum by taking free trips on museum yachts. Fumo also is accused of trying to thwart the FBI and IRS investigation by ordering e-mails destroyed.

Fumo's codefendant, Ruth Arnao, a longtime friend who was head of Citizens' Alliance, also is scheduled for trial. She is charged with 45 counts of conspiracy, fraud and tax violations.

The case promises to be a soap-opera saga about Fumo's personal life as well as his political work. A former girlfriend is expected to be one of the government's first witnesses.

His son-in-law, Christian Marrone, once a legislative aide in Fumo's South Philadelphia office, is expected to testify that he spent much of his time overseeing renovations at Fumo's Spring Garden mansion.

Another prosecution witness is Howard J. Cain, a political strategist and longtime member of Fumo's famously loyal inner circle, who agreed to cooperate with the government after he got caught up in his own tax crimes.

Two former computer technicians for Fumo are expected to testify that he told them to delete e-mails and clean his computer files of evidence as the FBI and IRS investigation heated up.

Big names fill the defense list of possible witnesses: Rendell, Reps. Robert Brady and Chaka Fattah, former Mayor W. Wilson Goode, two former state Supreme Court justices, and a number of Philadelphia judges.

And the consensus among experienced criminal defense lawyers is that Fumo is likely to testify in his defense.

"Juries expect it," said L. George Parry, a former prosecutor who is a Center City lawyer. "They always want to hear from the defendant. If I represented Mr. Fumo, I would want him to testify."

Fumo has faced federal charges before.

In 1980, a federal jury convicted him of conspiring to put Democratic Party workers in no-show jobs on the state payroll, but the judge tossed out the verdict.

And in 1973, when Sen. Arlen Specter (R., Pa.) was Philadelphia district attorney, Fumo and several other poll watchers were charged with conspiring to violate election law in the 1972 presidential election. Specter's successor, F. Emmett Fitzpatrick Jr., a Democrat, dropped the charges in 1974.

William A. DeStefano, another white-collar defense lawyer, said those two cases gave Fumo a "lot of confidence" going into the current case.

"He comes to this case with a track record of either having the charges dismissed . . . or being found not guilty," said DeStefano, who has represented several witnesses in the case.

He said Fumo had a number of good "common sense" defenses, especially to the charges that he defrauded the Senate.

The defense, for instance, is expected to contend that while some staffers may have done personal errands for Fumo, they were on call around the clock and put in more than an honest day's work for the Senate. Fumo also is expected to argue that he had received legal advice that it was permissible for his staff to continue purging e-mail after the investigation became public.

But the specter of a three-month trial is daunting for both sides. The prosecution has to be careful not to drag out its case, lawyers said, and the defense has the burden of 139 charges.

Richard L. Scheff, a former head of the corruption unit in the U.S. Attorney's Office who is a white-collar defense lawyer, said jury selection would be especially important.

"The defense has to be extremely careful to select people who can stick in for the long haul and who, notwithstanding the length of the trial and the breadth of the charges and the number of witnesses, can keep the presumption of innocence at the forefront," Scheff said.

Parry said prosecutors had had vast resources and plenty of time to build a compelling case.

"The federal government, I am sure, will present its usual thorough and painstaking and overwhelming case and leave it up to the defense to try to dig its way out," Parry said.

And that leaves Fumo, he said, in a tough position.

"It's an exceedingly difficult position to be in, and it will require Mr. Fumo to marshal all of his courage and all of his determination," Parry said. "Because this really is, in the final analysis, for a person of his age, a potential life sentence that he's facing."