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5.18.2001 00:05
Cianci aide to return to job
• Unlike other indicted City Hall workers, Artin H. Coloian is allowed to resume working and collecting his $109,000-a-year salary.
BY MIKE STANTON
Journal Staff Writer
PROVIDENCE
-- Sitting as mayor for a day, a retired judge ruled yesterday that the real mayor of Providence can have his indicted chief of staff back.
As a result, Artin H. Coloian, the suspended chief of staff to Mayor Vincent A. Cianci Jr., is expected to be back at work today at City Hall -- free to return to the scene of the alleged crime.
A federal indictment last month in Operation Plunder Dome, the corruption probe of City Hall, charged Cianci and Coloian with conspiring to take a $5,000 bribe from someone seeking a city job.
David C. Ead, a convicted city tax official who is cooperating with the authorities, has alleged that he met with the mayor to arrange a $5,000 payoff to secure a city planning job for Christopher J. Ise. Ead said that he subsequently gave the cash to Coloian in his office.
Normal city practice has been to suspend city employees accused of a crime without pay until the charges are resolved. That is what happened with previous defendants in Operation Plunder Dome.
But an independent hearing officer, retired Superior Court Judge John E. Orton III, said that Coloian was entitled not only to the presumption of innocence, but to be returned to his $109,000-a-year job, with back pay.
"Thank God we live in the United States of America," Orton
said. "An indictment is nothing more than an accusation. It's not evidence. What it is is the government's ticket to get you into the courtroom."
Orton was sitting in for Cianci. The mayor had recused himself, because he was indicted with Coloian. So City Solicitor Charles Mansolillo hired Orton as an independent hearing officer to decide Coloian's fate.
Orton, who was paid $200 an hour, didn't drag out the suspense. After listening to a 15-minute presentation from John Tarantino, Coloian's lawyer, the retired judge took about three minutes to render his decision.
In a city personnel hearing, a representative of the city can speak in opposition, although that is not required. Deputy City Solicitor Raymond Dettore told Orton that he had nothing to say.
Kathleen A. Moretti, the city personnel director, said that, normally, when a city employee has been charged with a crime, that person has been suspended without pay until after the case -- regardless of whether he or she had sought a hearing.
Because Coloian works directly for the mayor, he was exempt from personnel rules that apply to other city employees.
Coloian's reinstatement drew swift and sharp public criticism. It was also questioned by elected officials who have been critical of Cianci in the past.
"The mayor needed to show leadership, and instead this has sent an inconsistent message," said City Council President John J. Lombardi. "He is the mayor -- at least he grandstands to that effect -- so he should have shown some leadership" and suspended Coloian without pay.
"You've got to be kidding me," said state Rep. David Cicilline, who is interested in running for mayor next year. "I respect the concept that a person is innocent until proven guilty, but it's unsettling that the city has chosen not to follow past practice in suspending an employee without pay.
"The last time I checked, it's still the taxpayers who are paying Mr. Coloian's salary."
Actually, the taxpayers never stopped paying Coloian. Since his suspension, on April 6, he had been collecting $1,995 a week in vacation pay.
With yesterday's ruling, Coloian will be entitled to receive back pay for the nearly six weeks of his suspension, and recoup the vacation time that he had used.
Coloian, tan and relaxed after his hiatus, seemed bemused by the throng of reporters and television cameras that awaited him at 10 a.m. yesterday at the city law office at 100 Fountain St.
Coloian, dressed in a custom charcoal suit, sat at a conference table between his two lawyers from Adler Pollock & Sheehan, Tarantino and Patricia Rocha.
Sitting across from Coloian was a sketch artist working for a local television station, because cameras were not allowed inside. Under city rules, personnel hearings are private, unless the employee chooses to have it open, which Coloian opted to do.
Orton had met the previous day with Coloian's lawyers to discuss the hearing. One topic they discussed in private, which did not surface publicly, Orton said afterward, concerned unspecified government evidence against Coloian.
But as Tarantino noted at the outset of the hearing, a gag order issued earlier in the week by the federal judge in Operation Plunder Dome would restrict what could be publicly aired at the personnel hearing.
Absent that, and failing an appearance by David Ead, who had declined a request from Coloian's lawyer to attend, the discussion of the facts of the case was limited to the allegations contained in the indictment.
"It's only an indictment," Tarantino argued. "My understanding is that there's no independent evidence the city has come forward with . . . and Mr. Coloian and the mayor have consistently denied those allegations."
Tarantino produced written statements from Cianci and Coloian in which they denied the allegations.
"I never sought, nor did I accept, $5,000 from Mr. Ise," said Cianci's statement. "Since I never agreed . . . I didn't direct anyone through David Ead to give $5,000 to Mr. Coloian.
"Mr. Coloian has been an honest, hard-working member of my staff for years," Cianci continued in his statement. "He would be welcomed back without hesitation."
The bond between Cianci and Coloian is close. Not only has Coloian worked closely with the mayor since the early 1990s, he also has loaned the mayor money, according to Cianci's most recent financial disclosure statement to the Rhode Island Ethics Commission. The amount of the loan, which has appeared on Cianci's annual statements for several years, is not disclosed.
Tarantino noted that he had written to Ead's lawyer, James E. O'Neil, requesting Ead's attendance at the hearing, but that O'Neil had declined.
Ead has made one public statement on the Ise matter, however. Last fall, after The Journal disclosed Ead's allegations concerning the $5,000 bribe, Cianci called him a liar. That prompted an angry Ead to call WHJJ radio talk-show host John "The Independent Man" DePetro and challenge Cianci and Coloian to a public lie-detector test.
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