Ronnie Polaneczky: Everybody loves Vince - especially the bookies

SO THERE I was at the federal courthouse yesterday, trying to read all 300-plus letters of support for my convicted former state senator, Vince Fumo.

I barely made a dent in them. So many Fumo fans had weighed in with praise, getting through them would've taken me 55 months - or less, if I behaved myself and took no bathroom or coffee breaks as I read.

Honest to God, so voluminous were the letters that Team Fumo hoped would convince federal Judge Ronald Buckwalter to go easy on their boy, the gang had to separate them into categories: community organizers and constituents; friends and former employees; politicians and political activists; relatives and religious leaders.

On paper, it was such a gooey lovefest for the greedy pol (even two ex-girlfriends weighed in!), I had to mentally edit them as I read, just to keep things real.

Gov. Rendell, while conceding that he "could not forgive" Fumo for acting in ways that dishonored the lives of public servants, nonetheless praised "the tremendous good" Fumo had done for the citizens of Philadelphia.

But how much more could he have done, Guv, if he hadn't been so busy hiring a publicly paid private investigator to take you down?

Former mayor Rev. Wilson Goode Sr. wrote that, as an ordained minister, "I do believe in redemption. I believe this conviction has taught Vincent a great lesson in life . . ."

Yeah, to scrub the hard drives even better next time.

Real-estate magnate Ron Rubin said that he "just wanted to write and tell you what a great guy [Fumo] is in my opinion and someone who has always been there for his friends."

Especially when he spends Other People's Money on them!

And Philly Pops' artistic director Peter Nero gushed that his organization's growth began "from the moment Senator Fumo became involved."

Because the Citizens Alliance piggy bank has an ATM that never goes dry!

Oh, yeah, I was feeling mighty pissy as I read letters from hairdressers and bankers, lawyers and union leaders, military leaders and business moguls- even if some of them did acknowledge Fumo's 137-count guilty conviction ("I am aware of the severity of the crimes" that Fumo committed, wrote former Montgomery County D.A. Mike Marino).

But, really, what other reaction but anger is possible, or even decent?

Judge Buckwalter betrayed every resident of the commonwealth by kissing Fumo's ring with a 55-month sentence, instead of anything approaching the original 21 to 27 years called for in federal guidelines?

Fumo's doling out of good deeds was the political equivalent of a mob boss distributing turkeys at Thanksgiving: Hey, if ya keep your mouth shut and look the other way the rest of the year, you'll get a free bird next time, too.

Because Fumo obstructed justice from the moment that he heard that the feds were onto him, we'll never know exactly how many people got screwed for refusing the turkey - or for refusing to give him a tasty piece of whatever scrumptious deals he had arranged for them between Thanksgivings.

I guess none of those wronged people thought to write letters.

So how shocking was the

55-month sentence? So shocking, says Jimmy Tayoun, that even bookies taking bets on the sentence were stunned by how off their predictions had been about where Fumo's sentence would land within Buckwalter's hinted-at 11-to-14-year guideline.

"In South Philly, people bet on everything," says the convicted pol, South Philly icon and publisher of the Philadelphia Record.

"They were taking six-to-five action on Vince. Hardly anybody bet below the bottom of the guideline. Nobody bet below eight years. So a lot of bookies got rich on Tuesday."

Vince Fumo. Even convicted and sentenced, he brings crooked money to the people. *

E-mail polaner@phillynews.com or call 215-854-2217. For recent columns:

http://go.philly.com/polaneczky. Read Ronnie's blog at http://go.philly.com/ ronnieblog.