Judge: 3 Fumo warrants OK, but one deverves a hearing

A federal judge yesterday denied a motion by lawyers for state Sen. Vince Fumo to suppress some evidence obtained from three search warrants.

Fumo's lawyers said the warrants were overbroad and violated the senator's Fourth Amendment rights, but U.S. Senior District Judge William H. Yohn Jr. disagreed.

However, Yohn said he would hold a hearing next week regarding a claim by Fumo's legal team that a warrant issued on Feb. 18, 2005 to search Fumo's Tasker Street legislative office was "not issued by a neutral and detached magistrate."

Fumo, who dropped a bid for re-election earlier this year, was indicted in February 2007 on numerous charges of fraud, tax offenses and obstruction of justice. He and three co-defendants have pleaded not guilty and are scheduled to stand trial in September.

The warrant in question was issued by U.S. Magistrate M. Faith Angell.

Fumo lawyers asserted that the warrant contained instructions that had "no logical bearing" on the warrant.

The instructions Fumo objected to were contained in a single paragraph in small type near the bottom of the warrant.

The instructions said federal agents "may serve" the warrant on an Internet services provider, Voicenet, "in any reasonable manner and did not have to be present during the service or execution of the warrant."

Prosecutors said that portion of the warrant was "mistakenly left on the form" by the U.S. Attorneys office, which prepared it, "after being properly used in an earlier warrant."

The feds also said the FBI agent, Vicki Humphreys, "painstakingly prepared" a 40-page sworn affidavit and proposed a detailed list of items to be seized - Fumo e-mails, records from a charity closely aligned with Fumo and pay invoices - which never referred to Voicenet but instead "correlated precisely" with the factual allegations in the affidavit.

Prosecutors said Humphreys had done nothing wrong and was prepared to testify that the magistrate carefully reviewed the warrant and did not simply sign what was put in front of her.

Nevertheless, in order to resolve the question of whether Angell was "neutral and detached" and determine whether the erroneously included paragraph invalidates the warrant, Yohn said he would hold a hearing on July 1.

If the warrant were invalidated, some of the evidence seized might not be admissible at trial.

In addition to Fumo's Tasker Street office, the other search warrants were for co-defendant Leonard Luchko's Collingdale home and for additional searches of previously seized computer equipment. *