DAVID MAIALETTI / Staff photographer
Former state Sen. Vince Fumo near his South Philly home: He says he wishes his legal saga would end.
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John Baer: With appeal in works, count on more Fumo drama
SO VINCE FUMO's saga goes on. Is anyone surprised?
Could The Vince ever go quietly into that good night or, in this case, that good hoosegow?
Now that the feds have filed notice of appeal on what they call U.S. District Judge Ronald Buckwalter's slap-on-the-wrist 55 months for 137 felonies, Vince's legal team plans to counter: It will file a notice of appeal, seeking a whole new trial.
Even that's not the whole story. An angry Fumo says he wanted this over, wanted to pay his $2 million-plus in fines and restitution and go away: "I've had six years of this crap. I'm 66 years old. I was ready to pay up and get on with my life."
He's mad because he says the feds twice offered a deal, a maximum of 60 months in jail for a guilty plea to one count of fraud, and now seeks to appeal a similar sentence: "I would have got less than 60 months."
U.S. Attorney press aide Patricia Hartman says Fumo's "wrong" about such a deal. But my colleague Michael Hinkelman reported last month the feds offered it pretrial. His report was never challenged.
Vince is ticked because he says that right after sentencing, Assistant U.S. Attorney Robert Zauzmer - after seeking 15 years - suggested to one of Vince's attorneys, Peter Goldberger, there would be no appeal.
Hartman says Zauzmer said only, "There could be discussions" about no appeals. And Vince, after checking back with Goldberger, agrees Zauzmer suggested only that both sides "consider not appealing."
Vince slams former U.S. Attorney Pat Meehan, whose office brought the charges (Meehan left pretrial), for writing an op-ed piece criticizing the sentence after his office offered just about the same prison time.
Meehan says: "Absolutely irrelevant. Any discussions took place long before the case was prepared for trial and before Fumo chose to take the case to trial."
In a series of telephone and e-mail interviews this week, Fumo opened up about his feelings. Better buckle up for this:
"I always think of the Jews and others who were forced into the Nazi concentration camps for doing absolutely nothing. So many times bad things happen to good people and the only way to survive is to look forward not backward.
"I may write a book to correct the record someday. But I've led a great life and left a legacy better than Babe Ruth. I've helped thousands of people and made their life better . . . I look to Jimmy Stewart in 'It's a Wonderful Life' and always remember the greatest quote in the story, 'No man is a failure who has friends.' I have many, many friends and people who care and that sustains me and always will."
Speaking of sustaining, it could now take months for the U.S. solicitor general to give a go-ahead to appeal the sentence to the U.S. Court of Appeals for the Third Circuit, a court that includes Judge Midge Rendell, wife of the governor who wrote Buckwalter to ask that he consider the good things Fumo's done for Philly before imposing sentence.
I assume she'd recuse herself.
Meanwhile, Fumo's lead counsel, Dennis Cogan, says his appeal would seek a new trial based on "meritorious issues" related to the jurors' exposure to negative publicity about Vince throughout his five-month trial.
Cogan notes that jurors, although instructed to ignore anything related to the case, were bombarded with editorials, cartoons, columnists and "talking heads on Fox News giving their views on how bad Fumo was."
There were "two trials," says Cogan - one in the courtroom, one in the media. This month's Philadelphia magazine reports on jurors admitting they saw and heard lots about the trial, including stuff the judge stopped the feds from offering in court such as Fumo's 1980 conviction (overturned) in another political-corruption case.
Perhaps a sequestered jury and/or a change of venue would have served Vince better.
But after a 71-day trial costing Vince, according to a source, $1.8 million and costing taxpayers hundreds of thousands of dollars, not to mention the cost of a multiple-years investigation, we're not done yet.
There will likely be a request for bail and a request to delay Fumo's scheduled Aug. 31 imprisonment. There will likely be much more money spent on behalf of and against The Vince. What there won't be anytime soon is an end to his saga. *
Send e-mail to baerj@phillynews.com.
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