Looking at Mammana role in Christopher Wright case

Call him the man who isn't there.

Joseph Mammana, the Philadelphia egg baron who gained renown as a populist crimestopper before his 2006 arrest on a federal gun charge, will not testify in the corruption trial of City Councilman Jack Kelly's former chief-of-staff and three businessmen.

But as the trial of Kelly aide Christopher Wright enters its second week, Mammana's shadow looms large.

And when Kelly testifies today, as he is scheduled to do, one of the likely topics will be Mammana, who told the FBI of a once-close relationship between a convicted felon, a city councilman and his right-hand man.

Mammana pleaded guilty to federal tax evasion and firearms charges in early 2007. Hoping to reduce his sentence, he made some serious allegations about Kelly and Wright to the FBI. The FBI reports, which are not public record, were shared with Wright and codefendants Hardeep Chawla, Ravinder Chawla and Andrew Teitelman for their trial. Sources allowed The Inquirer to review them.

In those documents, Mammana told agents of giving cash, tickets to concerts and sporting events, and free dinners to Kelly and Wright from 2003 up until his arrest on Nov. 29, 2006. In exchange, Mammana said, he got help in City Hall with utility bills, a $550,000 loan for his egg business - even a 2004 City Council resolution in Mammana's honor.

None of Mammana's allegations turned into indictments against Kelly. Kelly has not been accused of wrongdoing, and has refused comment.

George Bochetto, Kelly's lawyer, said Mammana failed to "con the FBI."

"They checked everything out and it was all nonsense," Bochetto said.

Wright's attorney, Lisa Mathewson, declined to comment other than to note that none of Mammana's allegations were part of the indictment against her client.

Mammana's claims had enough facts in them to intrigue FBI agents, who confronted the 70-year-old Republican councilman about them in an early-morning raid of his house in June 2007.

Kelly denied Mammana's allegations to the FBI, but they apparently persuaded him to secretly record conversations with Wright and businessman Ravinder Chawla.

The Chawlas and Teitelman - two developer-brothers and their corporate lawyer - are accused of providing Wright with a rent-free apartment, a $1,000 check and free legal services in exchange for special treatment in City Hall. None of those charges involves Mammana.

What emerges from Mammana's claims is a picture of someone who spent large sums of money on behalf of Kelly, and received the kind of treatment campaign supporters are used to in City Council.

Mammana made his reputation with the Citizens Crime Commission of Delaware Valley, on whose board he sat. He offered his own cash, at least $130,000, as reward money for high-profile crimes between 2000 and 2004.

In March 2004, Kelly sponsored a Council resolution honoring Mammana for his work. One of City Council's 17 members refused to sign the resolution - Kelly's fellow Republican and sometimes-rival Frank Rizzo.

Rizzo said in an interview that he had heard about Mammana's brushes with the law - which included a conviction for hitting his wife on the head with a countertop in 1991 - and "didn't want him around me."

"His whole motive was phony," Rizzo said.

John Cerrone, Kelly's acting chief of staff, noted that Rizzo nevertheless did not vote against the resolution and posed with the rest of Council for a ceremonial photo with Mammana.

A month after the Council resolution passed, The Inquirer documented Mammana's long criminal history in Pennsylvania, New Jersey and Florida, where he spent 23 months behind bars from 1989 through the early 1990s on charges including aggravated assault, grand theft, fraud, conspiracy and burglary and other offenses.

In the Montgomery County incident with his then-wife in 1991, she told police that he ripped off a countertop, struck her with it, and threatened to kill her, burn her father's house down, and have her daughter "raped and blinded."

But Kelly was hardly alone among public figures in Mammana's circle.

Mammana hung around with then-Police Commissioner Sylvester M. Johnson, NAACP President J. Whyatt Mondesire, and Republican mayoral candidate Sam Katz. He gave $77,000 to Katz's 2003 mayoral campaign against incumbent John F. Street.

"Councilman Kelly, along with many other prominent Philadelphians and elected officials, believed that Mr. Mammana had paid his debt to society for the crimes he had committed [over 14 years earlier], and that he genuinely wanted a chance at redemption and to be a positive force in society," Cerrone said.

Jeffrey Lindy, Mammana's attorney in his federal tax-evasion and firearms case, took exception to the retroactive bad-mouthing of his client, who is expected to be sentenced on Feb. 26.

"Before this all happened, when he had money to give out with the Crime Commission, everybody liked him pretty well," Lindy said. "How much of a pariah was he when he was writing checks?"

It was Kelly who became Mammana's conduit with city government.

Kelly helped Mammana get a $550,000 taxpayer-backed loan from the Philadelphia Industrial Development Corp. for his company, Yardley Farms, in December 2004. The money was to help him buy the egg-products factory he managed in North Philadelphia, Cutler Dairy.

Mammana would default on the loan following his 2006 arrest by federal authorities.

Peter Longstreth, executive director of PIDC, which offers incentives to attract and keep businesses in the city, said the loan went through the typical approval process.

At this point, the taxpayer-funded PIDC is now on the hook for $570,000, according to a Common Pleas Court judgment.

In his interviews with FBI agents, Mammana claimed he spent more than $90,000 on campaign contributions, cash payments, and other expenses to Kelly and Wright.

Kelly has reported only receiving $18,500 in campaign contributions from Mammana: $2,500 in June 2003, and an in-kind contribution totaling $16,000 for a fund-raiser at the Moshulu restaurant in June 2004.

Some of the discrepancy between what Mammana said he spent on Kelly, and what the councilman noted in campaign finance reports, concerns the Moshulu event.

According to the vendors involved, the fund-raiser cost at least $50,000 to put on.

Bochetto said his client was forced to estimate the cost of the party because Mammana would not tell him how much he paid the vendors.

Even if Kelly had left off substantial amounts of contributions, it was before campaign contribution limits were in place. Kelly could correct the discrepancy by simply amending his campaign reports.

Mammana also feted Kelly upon his 2004 swearing-in. Mammana splurged with congratulatory party favors, including a six-inch statuette engraved with "Councilman Jack Kelly returns." Kelly had served on City Council from 1988 to 1992.

That party cost $20,000. The FBI questioned Kelly about it, and even talked to the caterer.

Kelly, according to the FBI reports reviewed by The Inquirer, told the FBI that he didn't have to file an in-kind contribution report on the party because it was not a campaign event and he did not receive money from it.

Mammana's credibility was certainly in question: The U.S. Attorney's Office noted in a court filing in his gun case that he had written checks from his business to Kelly and Katz and deposited them into his own account.

Mammana's sentencing has been delayed for nearly two years, during which time he has been cooperating with federal authorities. Sentencings for cooperating witnesses are often delayed until after the cases they provide information in are resolved. He is now scheduled to be sentenced Feb. 26.