Skip to content
Link copied to clipboard

Fumo: 'I wish I never got elected'

VINCE FUMO lamented to a jury at his federal corruption trial yesterday that he wished he had never become a state senator.

VINCE FUMO lamented to a jury at his federal corruption trial yesterday that he wished he had never become a state senator.

The one-time legislative kingpin was asked by a federal prosecutor why Senate staffers had ordered parts for Bose stereo equipment for his former wife.

The former state senator replied that he thought at the time that it was an appropriate use of state-paid employees.

"But it wasn't, was it?" asked Assistant U.S. Attorney John Pease.

"Look, in retrospect, I wish I never got elected to the Senate," Fumo said.

He conceded again yesterday that Senate staffers and contractors had done personal chores and tasks for him and that he had given Senate laptops to friends and family members.

He also admitted that there had been campaign meetings in his Senate office in the months leading up to the Democratic primary in 2004.

At times, Fumo was a feisty, if not smart-alecky, witness yesterday, as he sought to persuade jurors that his alleged misuse of taxpayer-funded aides didn't add up to the federal crimes that the feds have charged.

When Pease asked him about staffers making shipments of tea, hair spray and other goods to his Florida home, via Federal Express on the Senate's tab , Fumo said that he "didn't think it was that big a deal."

Prosecutors say that Fumo billed the taxpayers for $10,000 in overnight shipments to his home in Florida from 2001 to 2004. Fumo said that a lot of the shipments weren't personal.

In any case, Pease suggested that Fumo had been a pampered prince who couldn't or wouldn't do things for himself.

"It was easier to get your staff to send it to you, correct?" the prosecutor asked.

"Yes," Fumo replied.

Fumo attempted to defend himself, suggesting that Pease simply didn't understand the protocol of the state Senate.

At one point, after Pease showed Fumo numerous e-mails in which Fumo asked Senate aides to clean his Green Street mansion in Spring Garden or build a campaign Web site, Fumo was asked why staffers had been performing such tasks during normal working hours.

"The time they work is at my discretion," Fumo replied. "As long as they work 37.5 hours, that's the requirement. It's not in the middle of the day or that," Fumo replied.

Fumo accused Pease of "semantic" gamesmanship during his cross-examination, which will continue when the trial resumes on Tuesday.

* When the prosecutor insisted that Fumo routinely made "demands" of his staff to do his personal and political bidding, Fumo said that aides sometimes had performed personal chores as a "favor," adding that Pease didn't understand the "relationship" he had with his staff.

Pease ridiculed that idea. Fumo was "the boss" who was responsible for staffers' paychecks, he said, and therefore staff wasn't in a position to say "no."

* When Pease asked Fumo if he had thought that it was proper to "give" a Senate laptop to his then-girlfriend, Dorothy Egrie, Fumo replied that he had "lent" the laptop to her, which was retrieved, he said, when they broke up.

* Fumo was also questioned about a 2004 radio interview on WHYY (90.9-FM) in which he said that he "didn't get any benefits" from the nonprofit that he founded, Citizens Alliance for Better Neighborhoods.

Fumo testified on Tuesday that he had gotten $63,000 in "perks and gifts" from the South Philadelphia charity.

After a tape of the interview was replayed for jurors yesterday, Pease asked: "You did not tell the truth?"

"I did tell the truth," Fumo replied. "I chose my words carefully. When I spoke of benefits there, I was talking of the kind of benefits you get when you get a salary." *