The prosecution's dark portrait

Three weeks into the corruption trial of State Sen. Vincent J. Fumo, prosecution witnesses are portraying Fumo as a puppet master who pulled countless strings.

Witnesses have said that Fumo saw to it that a legislative clerk-typist scrubbed his toilets, and ordered another aide to oversee the renovation of his mansion.

He had a government-paid private eye tail his political and personal enemies.

And, on the public's dime, he hired a consultant to build a powerful political machine with a reach that extended across the state.

If the evidence holds up, Fumo would rank with the most notorious politicians for sheer range of personal and political services billed to taxpayers.

His defense - that the extra help was permissible because it helped him do his job better - is also raising some eyebrows.

Zachary Stalberg, the longtime newspaperman who now heads the election watchdog group Committee of Seventy, says the testimony so far raises questions about the very "Fumo legend of effectiveness."

To some degree, Stalberg said, Fumo's outsize clout reflected his "style, his understanding of politics and his intellectual depth."

Yet the trial, Stalberg added, suggests that Fumo's success also stemmed from "these extra resources at his disposal."

So far, it's been the prosecution's show - and the government's case is expected to continue for weeks before the defense presents its case.

Nevertheless, Fumo's lead defense attorney, Dennis J. Cogan, has suggested during cross-examination that his client personally paid for some of the work done on his behalf.

And, he has contended that Fumo's staffers worked a fair week for the Senate - but were so loyal and devoted to his legislative agenda that they did personal errands for him, such as paying his bills and picking up his laundry, on their own time.

Cogan has also argued that it is OK for aides to provide some personal assistance to Fumo "if it makes him more efficient and frees him up" to work harder at his legislative priorities.

Calling their most potent witnesses early in the trial, Assistant U.S. Attorneys John J. Pease and Robert A. Zauzmer are seeking to persuade the jury that Fumo was a politician of vast power and reach precisely because he obliterated the boundaries between the legislative, the personal and the political.

His South Philadelphia legislative office was a dynamo of campaign activity, witnesses said. There, state-paid aides strategized and stuffed envelopes, planned fund-raisers and vetted candidates, both to help Fumo win his own campaigns - usually a cakewalk - and to boost other candidates statewide.

In his personal life, the witnesses said, Fumo was spoiled and indulged. State drivers ferried him around town and even drove his luggage north to Martha's Vineyard while he flew there for annual summer vacations. Workers from his charity hauled away his trash, shoveled his snow and hauled boxes of Christmas decorations to his home for a lavish display.

In the first heavy anti-Fumo blow in the trial, Fumo's estranged son-in-law, Christian Marrone, took the stand to testify about improper conduct by himself and others on the public payroll.

Marrone told the jury that he arrived at Fumo's office as an idealistic college grad, only to find that his legislative job boiled down to overseeing the $1.7 million renovation of Fumo's 33-room home in Spring Garden.

Marrone went through a list of Senate staffers who he said are known for tending to Fumo's personal affairs.

During his testimony, he said one staffer took care of Fumo's personal finances, another cleaned Fumo's home and a third kept an eye on work done on Fumo's Florida home.

Marrone said the "culture of the office" was for everyone to do a mix of jobs, commingling legislative, political and personal tasks.

"How would I know that that was wrong?" Marrone asked plaintively as Cogan was cross-examining him.

"I'm not saying it is wrong," replied Cogan, touching a central theme of the defense - that Senate rules are murky and that personal and political errands were OK if that made Fumo a more effective public servant.

Private detective Frank Wallace said he investigated matters personal and political, all at Fumo's directions.

When not tailing one of Fumo's former girlfriends or investigating her new boyfriend, Wallace saw to it that video was shot of those arriving for a meeting held by one of Fumo's political enemies.

In just five years, taxpayers paid Wallace more than $200,000 for his work.

Veteran political consultant Howard Cain did even better. He earned more than $500,000 over his years of service for Fumo.

Cain, who turned on Fumo after he was caught evading income taxes, testified that he crisscrossed Pennsylvania helping candidates backed by the Democratic state senator.

According to testimony, Fumo was as generous with state Senate equipment as he was at giving out lucrative state contracts.

Witnesses said that a string of non-Senate staffers got Senate computers, including private eye Wallace and political consultant Cain; Fumo's second wife; a former girlfriend; and the sons of Mitch Rubin, who is married to Fumo's codefendant, Ruth Arnao.

Through it all, the jury of 10 women and two men has seemed to be listening closely as testimony has unfolded before U.S. District Judge Ronald L. Buckwalter.

Randall Miller, who teaches political science at St. Joseph's University, said people who knew Fumo weren't surprised that he pushed the limits.

But the testimony so far had left some shaking their heads anyway.

"What surprised them," he said, "is the scale and in some cases, even the pettiness of it."