Fumo sentence a topic of debate

A federal judge said yesterday that he would inform prosecutors and defense lawyers today what the appropriate sentencing guideline range should be for disgraced former state Sen. Vince Fumo.

A pre-sentence report prepared by the U.S. Probation Office set Fumo's range at 21 to 27 years behind bars.

Fumo, 66, is to be sentenced Tuesday. A jury found him guilty in March on 137 counts of defrauding the state Senate, a charity and the Independence Seaport Museum, and of obstruction of justice and related offenses.

Prosecutors and defense attorneys argued about defense objections to the pre-sentence report at a hearing yesterday before U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter.

The defense wants the judge to find that the total fraud loss is less than the $4.3 million figure calculated by the probation office. (The fraud-loss number affects the advisory-sentencing guideline range.) If the judge were to find the overall fraud loss was less than $2.5 million, Fumo would likely face less prison time.

Fumo attorney Dennis Cogan did not say what he thought an appropriate Senate loss figure was.

Cogan disputed the $2.4 million loss attributed to the Senate. He said that the number was "arbitrary" and based only on government "estimates" of Senate time that Fumo staffers used to do his personal or political work.

But Assistant U.S. Attorney Bob Zauzmer said that prosecutors had used the "lowest possible estimates" to determine the loss. He said that the feds relied on trial testimony, exhibits and, most important, the jury's verdict in determining the loss. "The verdict means a lot," Zauzmer said, adding that some of the fraud counts were for payments made to specific Senate staffers or contractors.

The feds said that Fumo overpaid staffers by putting them in job classifications that they weren't qualified for, including two former staffers who they say were improperly classified and overpaid by $136,254.

But Cogan pointed out that the two staffers now work for other senators and were still classified in the same pay scale that Fumo had assigned to them.

Defense attorneys also quarreled with some of the pre-sentence report's conclusions that Fumo's total offense level should be increased because he misrepresented that he was acting on behalf of a charity or governmental agency when he got Peco to donate $17 million to Citizens Alliance.

But prosecutors pointed to Citizens Alliance's use of a for-profit subsidiary to purchase luxury vehicles for Fumo's benefit that would not have to be publicly disclosed on Citizens Alliance's annual 990 return filed with the IRS.

Defense attorneys also sought downward departures - which could also reduce the advisory guideline range - based on Fumo's public service and medical condition.

Prosecutors said neither were sufficiently "extraordinary" to warrant a departure, noting a recent report by Fumo's cardiologist that the ex-senator's prognosis was "good." *