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Former Mayor Street latest Fattah witness

Former Mayor John F. Street strolled into the federal courthouse Friday wrapped in a bright orange fleece, and with tufts of white hair peeking out from under his baseball cap. He had come, he said, to stick up for "the fine young man" he has "always known."

Former Philadelphia Mayor John Street leaves the U.S. Courthouse at 6th and Market streets after brief testimony in defense of Chaka Fattah Jr on Friday morning.
Former Philadelphia Mayor John Street leaves the U.S. Courthouse at 6th and Market streets after brief testimony in defense of Chaka Fattah Jr on Friday morning.Read more(ALEJANDRO A. ALVAREZ / Staff Photographer)

Former Mayor John F. Street strolled into the federal courthouse Friday wrapped in a bright orange fleece, and with tufts of white hair peeking out from under his baseball cap. He had come, he said, to stick up for "the fine young man" he has "always known."

Testifying as the latest defense witness in the federal fraud trial of Chaka "Chip" Fattah Jr., Street told jurors that his campaign paid Fattah $44,000 to shoot photos between 2002 and 2004 and that he was thoroughly satisfied with his work.

"I can tell you, I never heard a complaint," the ex-mayor said to Fattah, who is representing himself. "You seemed to be everywhere you needed to be."

Street's testimony came as the 32-year-old son of U.S. Rep. Chaka Fattah (D., Pa.) continued his effort to prove his record as a legitimate businessman while dispelling prosecutors' depiction of him as a scam artist. They allege he cheated banks, the IRS, and the Philadelphia School District out of thousands of dollars paid to his thinly defined business ventures between 2004 and 2012.

Former Gov. Ed Rendell and Fattah's grandfather, David Fattah, both testified Thursday about work Fattah Jr. had previously done for them.

But like those who testified earlier, Street struggled to answer questions about the Fattah companies at the core of the government's case - 259 Strategies, a management consulting firm, and American Royalty, a personal concierge service that the government alleges was largely a scam.

The ex-mayor cocked his head, his face bearing a bemused expression as prosecutor Eric Gibson rattled off a list of services American Royalty purportedly provided.

"Did Mr. Fattah ever offer to sell you concierge services?" Gibson asked. Street replied: "Huh?"

Access to private jets? "Uhh . . . no," he said.

Tickets to sporting events? "Well, no," he responded.

European vacations? Street knit his brow and smiled. "Getting harder to answer," he said.

Prosecutors allege Fattah and a former business partner took $141,000 in business loans meant to support 259 Strategies and blew the money on a luxury lifestyle. To obtain the money, the duo purportedly submitted fabricated tax returns for the company in 2005 that claimed it had earned $140,000 in revenue the year before.

Investigators say that the consulting firm had not even been incorporated at the time and that Fattah reached that fake $140,000 figure by citing odd jobs and "cobbling together anything and everything" he could point to as income for a business that did not yet exist.

One of those jobs, described Friday by Street, consisted of Fattah's buying a large load of Polaroid film on consignment from the mayor's campaign. Fattah later sold it for a small profit in New York.

The film had been purchased, Street said, for his "Polaroid Posse" - a group of photographers, including Fattah, hired to capture the mayor on the campaign trail interacting with voters.

"We purchased literally thousands of individual shots and cameras," Street testified. "We called it the posse because they were with me at subway stops and various events."

Fattah contends that revenue from jobs like the Polaroid resale - cited on 259 Strategies' 2004 tax filing - was legitimate income from his photo business, FattahGraphy.

But as Fattah put the question to his next witness - lead FBI investigator Richard J. Haag - the agent stood firm.

"We're kind of losing the forest for the trees here," he said. "The government's position is that 259 Strategies did not exist in 2004. This tax return was prepared as an instrument of bank fraud."

Their back-and-forth only deteriorated from there.

Seemingly nervous, Fattah, in his questioning, became overly layered and meandering - the meat of each inquiry buried under a lard of clauses and a near-constant patter of revisions, restatements, and apologies.

Fattah has exhibited a similar verbosity throughout the trial. But the habit grew more pronounced as he faced off against the outwardly calm Haag.

"You don't have to apologize when you ask a question," U.S. District Judge Harvey Bartle III interrupted at one point.

Implacable, Haag seized control of the exchange and took the opportunity to summarize the government's case.

"It's pretty clear to me that you used the loan proceeds to live off of," he said.

After Haag's testimony, Bartle dismissed jurors early for the day.

Testimony is expected to resume Monday. Fattah said he plans to finish presenting evidence in his case early next week.

jroebuck@phillynews.com

215-854-2608

@jeremyrroebuck