At one point during the interview, aired on WHYY on Jan. 29, 2004, four days after an FBI investigation of him became public, Fumo was questioned about his relationship with Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods. He said: "I don't get any money from it. I don't get any benefits from it," adding that "once in a while" Citizens Alliance picked up trash at his home and he paid $100 a month for it.

FBI agent Brian Nichilo was asked by Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Zauzmer yesterday if he had investigated whether Fumo ever paid for any trash pickup at his home beforeJan. 29, 2004.

"I did and he did not," Nichilo replied.

Nichilo testified that the first payment from Fumo to Citizens Alliance for trash pickup came the day after the radio interview. He said he had never found any payments by Fumo for purchases.

Nichilo, a certified public accountant, testified how he had combed though Citizens Alliance receipts, credit-card statements, checks and invoices, analyzed various expenses and then prepared summary charts to explain what he found.

Prosecutors allege that Fumo and co-defendant Ruth Arnao looted the nonprofit to the tune of $1.4 million for their personal benefit.

Nichilo said he often couldn't find records from Citizens Alliance. For example, he had to obtain most of the nonprofit's cell-phone records from the phone companies.

He said that he then discovered Citizens Alliance was picking up the cell-phone tabs for four people, including Fumo's daughter, Nicole, even though they weren't Citizens Alliance employees.

Nichilo testified that he found only a few instances in which Fumo or Arnao paid for or reimbursed Citizens Alliance for $73,000 of consumer goods the nonprofit paid for between 1999 and 2004. (He testified that he unearthed a check for $12,257 that Arnao wrote to Citizens Alliance on March 2, 2004, about six weeks after the investigation became public.)

Nichilo also was questioned about a summary chart of contributions made to the Independence Seaport Museum.

The feds say Fumo defrauded the Independence Seaport Museum of more than $100,000 by taking free cruises on museum yachts.

The defense has argued that Fumo, a former board member, used the cruises to entertain potential museum donors.

Nichilo was asked to research museum records about all the people who had gone on cruises with Fumo.

"What did you find with regard to those people?" Zauzmer asked.

"None of those people gave any money," Nichilo replied. (Fumo himself contributed $250 to the museum in 1993.)

Defense attorney Ed Jacobs Jr. suggested on cross-examination that jurors shouldn't place too much reliance on Nichilo's summary charts.

For example, he said a summary chart of $387,000 in expenses for eight vehicles that Citizens Alliance between 1996 and 2004 and that the feds say were for the personal benefit of Fumo, Arnao or Senate staff, was incomplete and misleading.

Jacobs said Nichilo's chart didn't reflect the sales of some vehicles or account for the depreciation of others and the subsequent tax deductions for a for-profit subsidiary of Citizens Alliance.

Nichilo admitted that Citizens Alliance could save on its tax bill and said his chart hadn't taken into account depreciation.

Jacobs is expected to continue his cross-examination of Nichilo when the trial resumes Monday. *