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Senate staff seeks subpoenaed reporters' numbers

A lawyer seeking the sources of some Pennsylvania journalists in a grand-jury leak investigation also went looking for the reporters' cell-phone numbers. He went to the state Senate's top Democrat for help.

A lawyer seeking the sources of some Pennsylvania journalists in a grand-jury leak investigation also went looking for the reporters' cell-phone numbers. He went to the state Senate's top Democrat for help.

Scranton lawyer Sal Cognetti Jr. called Sen. Robert Mellow's office seeking cell numbers for "eight or nine" reporters, a spokesman for Mellow said. A member of Mellow's staff then called reporters.

On the list were three Inquirer staff writers - Mark Fazlollah, Craig R. McCoy and John Shiffman - and John Baer, a Philadelphia Daily News columnist, Mellow spokesman Charlie Tocci said.

They are among 15 journalists who received subpoenas seeking their sources for stories about the grand-jury investigation of casino owner Louis A. DeNaples, now charged with perjury. Authorities allege he lied when, in a hearing to obtain his casino license, he denied having connections to organized crime.

Cognetti represents the Rev. Joseph Sica, a DeNaples friend who also is charged with perjury. Cognetti declined to comment on the request for the numbers.

Richard A. Sprague, DeNaples' lawyer, also declined to comment.

Lawyers in the case speculated that if members of the DeNaples team were able to obtain phone records from police or prosecutors, they could search those calls for the reporters' cell-phone numbers - thus identifying who might have leaked information.

"We consider these attempts to obtain our reporters' cell-phone numbers as further evidence of the DeNaples and Sica defense team's intent to harass members of the media," said Scott K. Baker, general counsel of Philadelphia Media Holdings, publisher of The Inquirer and the Daily News.

As for the involvement of Mellow's staff, Baker wrote in an e-mail: "To say the least, this would not seem to be an appropriate use of our taxpayer dollars."

Mellow, a 37-year senator from Scranton, said he saw nothing wrong with trying to help Cognetti, saying he had known nothing of the issue until Tuesday, after The Inquirer began asking questions.

"A constituent asked openly for something. There is nothing backhanded, no sleight of hand, nothing deceiving about it," he said.

Mellow said he had not spoken with Cognetti about why he requested the numbers. "I don't get involved with constituent requests," he said.

Dauphin County Judge Todd A. Hoover is conducting a hearing, ordered by the state Supreme Court, into whether secrecy rules were broken during the grand-jury investigation of DeNaples.

Also last week, someone pretending to be a reporter for a Pittsburgh paper called two reporters who were under subpoena, trying to confirm their cell-phone numbers.

Daily News reporter Chris Brennan said: "His exact words were, 'This is Randy Carruthers of the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. To whom am I speaking?' "

Reporter Matt Birkbeck from the Allentown Morning Call got a similar call, said Ardith Hilliard, the paper's editor. The caller hung up when Birkbeck started asking questions, she said.

There is no such person on the Post-Gazette staff, executive editor David M. Shribman said, calling the impersonation "repugnant."

As a federal prosecutor in 1977, Cognetti helped convict DeNaples and others on charges of defrauding the federal government in the cleanup from Hurricane Agnes. But in the years since, Cognetti has become a friend and supporter of DeNaples.

Mellow, likewise, has been a longtime supporter of DeNaples. DeNaples, his relatives and companies have given $300,000 since 2001 to Senate Democrats and a Mellow political action committee.

Cognetti has done legal work for Senate Democrats; he also has given $4,700 to Mellow's campaign committee since 2000, records show.

Looking for the reporters' cell-phone numbers, Cognetti last week called a lawyer in Mellow's office, chief counsel C.J. Hafner, who passed the names to his secretary.

The secretary gave the names to April Coble, an aide in the Senate Democratic communications office, Tocci said.

Her first call was to Baer, the Daily News' longtime Harrisburg columnist, Tocci said. Baer said he did not remember receiving such a call.

Her next call was to Fazlollah, who asked why she wanted the cell phones; she said she was just carrying out a request. Fazlollah said he then alerted his colleagues.

Tocci later told Inquirer editor William K. Marimow that the request had come from Cognetti.

"It was a misunderstanding," Tocci said in an interview, explaining that Hafner's secretary had wanted Coble only to check to see if she had the numbers - not to make calls to try to obtain them.

Hafner declined to be interviewed, and Coble declined to comment.

Asked why Cognetti would be interested in reporters' cell-phone numbers, Tocci suggested that he might want to be able to keep in contact with reporters involved in the case.

"I tend to think it was innocent," he said.