Key figure in Philly bugging probe now top Cain aide

A key figure in the Philadelphia corruption probe of the Street administration in the early 2000s has resurfaced as a high-ranking aide to GOP presidential hopeful Herman Cain.

Jamie Brazil, a longtime Scranton political consultant and wheeler-dealer, was never charged with a crime in the high-profile investigation. But a watchdog group essentially barred Brazil from the securities industry in 2006 after he tried to invoke the 5th Amendment rather than answer questions about his work for two municipal-bond firms.

During the corruption probe, federal wiretaps also showed Brazil seeking business on behalf of a well-known Philadelphia Muslim cleric later sentenced to seven years in prison on charges of racketeering, commercial bribery, multiple frauds and income-tax fraud.

Brazil may have been banned from bond work - but not from high-stakes politics. As vice president of field operations for the campaign of the former pizza company CEO and top-tier Republican White House wannabe, aides said the operative from Northeastern Pennsylvania is part of Cain's inner circle of five top aides. Another member of that circle, press aide J.D. Gordon, said Brazil is "essential."

"This is an old and tired story," said Gordon of Brazil's ties to the Philadelphia probe. He said he had discussed inquiries from the Daily News with Brazil on Wednesday. "He was never accused of anything and never targeted."

Gordon said the 2006 finding by the National Association of Security Dealers that prevented him from associating with its member firms was not important because Brazil never was a registered securities dealer - precisely the reason that the industry watchdog group was probing Brazil's work for two mid-Atlantic bond firms.

Brazil's murky background is sure to add volume to complaints about the quality of Cain's campaign staff, which has been reeling in recent days from its handling of sexual-harassment allegations as well as Cain's seeming lack of knowledge of foreign-policy issues, including a disastrous, fumbling answer to a question about Libya. Cain, who had been leading in some national polls, has now fallen behind Mitt Romney and Newt Gingrich in new surveys.

Brazil's story is also a colorful one. Until three years ago, the now-aide to a tea party favorite was a Democrat, known for his ties to the family of that party's stalwart Hillary Rodham Clinton.

Like Brazil, 52, the Rodham family is deeply rooted in the Scranton area, and Brazil is close to the secretary of state's brothers, Tony and Hugh Rodham. Former president Bill Clinton and Hillary once stayed at Brazil's home on a visit to Scranton for a family event. But after Hillary Clinton lost out to President Obama in the 2008 primaries, Brazil went to work for GOP Sen. John McCain.

Here in Philadelphia, Brazil was not well-known until 2004, when his name surfaced in connection with the probe that included an electronic listening device discovered in the City Hall office of then-Mayor John Street.

The Daily News reported that the FBI was "closely scrutinizing" the role of Brazil - then listed as senior vice president for the Pittsburgh-based investment firm HT Capital Markets. The feds were looking at Brazil's extensive ties to Shamsud-din Ali, the Muslim cleric, and Ron White, the chief fundraiser for Street who was indicted but died of cancer before a trial.

Ultimately, Brazil was not charged. At the 2005 federal trial of Ali - a former Black Mafia leader formerly named Clarence Fowler whose 1970 murder conviction was later overturned - prosecutors played a wiretap of Brazil lobbying the imam for help in convincing Street to give Philadelphia bond work to HT Capital Markets.

"I'd like someone to be able to say to the mayor: 'HT needs your help,' " Brazil was taped telling Ali.

In a separate case, wiretapped conversations that included Brazil were central to a perjury indictment against a prominent Scranton businessman, Louis DeNaples, accused of lying about his connections to organized crime.

The four-count 2008 indictment of DeNaples includes a lengthy wiretapped phone call in which Brazil and Ali proposed sending refuse from Philadelphia demolition projects to a DeNaples landfill. The charges against DeNaples were ultimately dropped in a deal in which he gave up his license to operate a casino at the Mount Airy Lodge.

In the mid-2000s, the NASD probed whether Brazil - who had been with Commerce Capital Markets before HT - was selling securities to municipalities without proper registration. It barred Brazil from securities work after he tried to cite his 5th Amendment right against self-incrimination in not answering its questions, something the watchdog group said Brazil was not entitled to do.